


The Mortifying Ordeal of Being A Writer

by omnipah



Category: Marianne (TV 2019)
Genre: Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, Communication, F/F, Fix-It, Gen, Lack of Communication, Ocean, Redemption, Sharing a Body, because this is Emma we're talking about, gratuitous depictions of the ocean, mostly not but tagging to be on the safe side
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 38,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29158218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omnipah/pseuds/omnipah
Summary: What if Marianne (2019), but no one dies, Emma and Camille are (going to be) dating, people communicate, and there’s a cat.Disclaimer: This was written with the intent to be a complete story, and thus be both intelligible and interesting to anyone, even people who haven’t seen the original Netflix show. So if you’re interested in a story about a writer who reconciles with the villain from her horror story, who is both her own person and a representation of the writer’s own worst qualities, then this is the story for you. Also, protag gets a girlfriend (two if that’s what you’re into).
Relationships: Camille & Emma Larsimon, Camille/Emma Larsimon, Emma & Marianne
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	1. The Beginning, Which is also an Ending of Sorts

**Author's Note:**

> You ever watch a show and hate that it had potential that didn't go anywhere? You ever make it your mission to rewrite it, but like, good this time?  
> This is that.
> 
> Much of the first half is taken from the show itself, since I couldn't just start where I wanted to diverge because the beginning also had some things that needed fixing (and also, I thought it would make more sense this way). The first half more-or-less corresponds to the first 3 episodes, but all of it has little bits I've shuffled around or spliced in. Major changes are in the summary, but I also took out the Inspector, and it's tonally not a horror any more, except in ch7.
> 
> Thematically it's much more focused on Emma's relationships and the tension around returning home (which is what I liked about the beginning of the show), and the framing around Marianne doesn't stay villainous, because I Think That's Stupid. Also it's not _explicitly_ a romance, but the development of Emma and Camille's relationship is very much meant to be read that way.
> 
> Many thanks to @ThunderstormsandMemories and @floraidh for giving this a read while it was (is) still in progress, and any input and/or Validation you provided.

Emma couldn’t sleep.

It’s not that she wasn’t used to that, of course. Sleep deprivation was an important part of her creative process. Ever since high school, she’d had the same routine: every night, in the small hours, she’d stumble to bed with every intention of sleeping, and she’d lie down and she’d close her eyes. Every night, she’d catch a few hours of sleep before her dreams ejected her, then she’d lie awake with her thoughts swirling around her head, some half-formed, some clear as daylight, before she finally gave up and set them to paper.

The words would pour out, sometimes in a flood, sometimes a slow and steady trickle. It was always a release, like removing a splinter, and if she was lucky, she’d get it all out before the sun came up. Then she could get some real rest.

That was fine. It was known. She could work with it.

No, the problem this time was that she was done with all that. With writing. At least, writing what she wrote at night.

She’d promised herself.

She knew the vicious cycle was eating at her, and she’d known it more acutely with every book she’d finished. The last one had been agonising; she’d almost thought she wouldn’t make it to the end, but she’d found that the harder it was to write, the harder it was not to. She’d needed to finish. And she had. She’d written a real, final ending that she’d made sure she couldn’t undo, and she’d been so pleased to have managed it that she hadn’t realised until now what it would mean.

So here she was, after another vivid dream, lying awake with nothing to do but wait until exhaustion took her and the dreams started again.

The fans hadn’t been pleased, naturally. She’d made the decision official earlier that day, at the premier of her tenth and final book. She’d let the publishers know in advance, of course, but now it was really set in stone. Or at least, it was set in the banner across the top of each of the books with the words ‘FINAL CHAPTER’ printed boldly across it, and those fans who came to the event had all seen it, she’d made sure of it.

She didn’t really care all that much that they were upset – she’d never been writing for them anyway – but she was done, and she was tired, and she didn’t want to hear it. What she should have done, what she shouldn’t have, why they didn’t like how it ended. It was what it was, and they’d just have to deal with that.

The end of the Q&A session saw her slip outside, away from all the tension and the irritation, and into the comfortable familiarity of her assistant, Camille. To Emma’s amusement, she’d done a double take at the rather premature sight.

“You aren’t signing?” she’d said, slightly panicked.

“I need a break,” Emma had replied emphatically, already starting off down the sidewalk. “Come on, let’s walk,”

Camille had followed slightly behind her, jogging lightly to catch up to her head start, trying valiantly to wrangle her into some semblance of professionalism as she went.

“You have to go, you said you would!” she had insisted, aghast.

Emma’s only response was, “Do you have what I asked for?” She’d glanced over her shoulder lazily to take the cup from Camille, taking a long drink through the straw.

After a moment, she had conceded.

“Fine, I’ll do London, _if_ –” she cut in before Camille could get too relieved, “–you go out with me tonight,”

That had stopped Camille right where she stood. She stammered slightly, offering up any number of excuses as Emma slowed and turned to face her: she was tired, she said, and overworked… and anyway, after the tour she wouldn’t even be Emma’s assistant any more.

Emma had paused, thinking for another moment, regarding her.

Then, she had pulled out her phone, and continued walking, already typing away.

Camille had once again followed behind, a slightly suspicious frown creasing her brow. “What are you doing?”

“Asking Rachelle if she wants to go out.” At Camille’s quizzical look, she had explained, as matter-of-factly as she could, “She’s my agent,”

“But I work for your agent,”

Emma had stopped suddenly, turning to face Camille head-on.

“And don’t you want to become an agent yourself? Hm?” She’d quirked her eyebrows challengingly. “I’d _rather_ go with you, but –” she gave an exaggerated shrug, “–since you don’t want to…”

Camille had taken a moment to process what she was hearing, before laughing as if she couldn’t quite believe it. Her eyes were wide, starstruck behind the circular frames of her glasses.

“Is this… emotional blackmail?” she’d gasped out, still grinning.

A slight smile had slid onto Emma’s face. “No, it’s _professional_ blackmail,” she’d answered playfully, but held her gaze intently.

Camille had sobered, not quite frowning. For a moment, Emma could feel her indecision, the gears of her mind working, like a physical thing in the air, before:

“Fine.” Camille had walked quickly on, her head down. “Just one drink,” she’d insisted, turning back sharply. “And first, you sign,”

“That won’t take long…”

It had, of course. A lot of people liked Lizzie Larck, it seemed. Saw themselves in her, maybe? Or maybe they just liked the adventure of it. Emma had wondered sometimes, back when she was in the thick of it, sometimes had tried to guess from the comments they made to her. It was strange, in a way, to have others enjoy her nightmares so profoundly, people she’d never met and never would, not really.

Today, though, she hadn’t wondered much of anything. Her mind was on her plans for the evening, her replies quick and curt, her smiles professional and distant.

“It’s cruel to leave us without an ending,” one girl had said.

“Make up your own,” she’d replied, punctuating her signature with a flourish. “Imagination’s cool.” And besides, she’d thought, she’d killed off her main character. What could be more of an ending than that?

Later, she’d sat on a bar stool opposite Camille, well past “just one drink”. Camille had had her head down, surveying the shot glasses on the table, some full and some empty. A furrow had formed between her brows as Emma drained them, one by one.

She’d leaned forward on her crossed arms, her gaze rising back up to Emma as a thought struck her. “Your books… what are they about?”

Emma had paused mid-motion as she picked up a glass. Frowning, she put it back down.

“You don’t read them?”

“I don’t like horror,” she’d laughed.

“You’ve been working for me for six months and you haven’t read one?”

“They keep me up at night!”

Ironic, Emma had thought. Though, she supposed, if she wasn’t the one writing them, they might have had the same effect on her.

She’d thought for a moment.

“They’re… nightmares,”

“Nightmares?”

Emma had hummed and knocked back a shot. “I used to have recurring nightmares as a kid. They always had the same thing in them,”

“What thing?”

She’d paused, not meeting Camille’s eyes.

“Marianne.”

She’d shivered slightly at speaking the name aloud. It was… different than writing it, somehow.

She’d mentally shaken herself, and continued, “It stops when I write. So, I invented Lizzie Larck to kick her ass.” She’d smiled wryly. “And then I became rich,” she’d said, spreading her arms in a shrug.

Camille had taken a moment to digest that. “But what is Marianne? What’s she like?”

Emma had turned away, surveying the other patrons of the bar intently.

“Marianne looks like you and me,” she’d began. “She’s a witch. Deprived of a body, she wanders. She enters your soul, warps your body. She takes you over, possesses you.” She took another shot. “The only thing Marianne can’t do is lie about her name. She can avoid the question, change the subject. But she cannot lie about her name,”

She had sighed, rubbing at her eyes as she finished: “She is the wife of a demon,”

Camille had been listening intently, her eyes bright and curious in the dim bar.

Then, she’d cocked her head to the side and grinned. “So… how does Lizzie get rid of Marianne?”

Emma had turned back, finally met her eyes.

“She dies,”

Emma had stayed on long after Camille left, insisting that she really was tired. She’d said pointedly that _she_ needed to get some rest before coming back in to work again, leaving the “and so do you” implicit.

Emma had thought inwardly that sounded like a brilliant idea, and maybe she would try it if she ever got the chance.

Instead, she’d lingered until she couldn’t avoid it any longer, until her eyes were all but closing on her right there in the bar. Minutes later, she’d found herself staring down the door to her apartment, taking a deep breath.

Then, as always, she’d stumbled in, with just enough presence of mind to drink some water to dull the inevitable hangover. As always, she’d made it to bed in the small hours of the night, this time just before 2am. And, as always, she’d woken again, not even a full hour later. And now, there was nothing she could do to stop her racing mind, and nothing she could do to stop her thoughts from melting back into dreams.

As she fell asleep once more, a familiar pair of piercing brown eyes faded into view, along with a whisper, a thought that wasn’t hers:

“Come home,”

\--

The next morning saw Emma walk stiffly into her publisher’s HQ, head still pounding, adjusting her sunglasses as she approached the reception area and came to an unsteady halt beside Camille. Her assistant raised an eyebrow, and wordlessly handed her the waiting to-go cup of espresso. It was now just barely lukewarm, but Emma accepted it without complaint, feeling Camille’s dark eyes on her as she took the first sip.

“Had a good night?”

“Brilliant.” Emma’s voice was toneless as she held the cup close in front of her face, hoping the sharp smell could help clear her head.

Camille hummed. Just as she took a breath to say something else, her phone buzzed.

“Hello?” She answered it, perplexed. She hadn’t been expecting any professional calls this early in the day. “May I ask who I’m speaking to?”

She frowned as she listened, then turned quizzically to Emma, covering the speaker. “She says she wants to talk to you about Caro. A friend of yours?”

Emma frowned, slowly replacing her cup on the reception desk. She held out her hand for the phone, resting her sunglasses on the top of her head and pinching the bridge of her nose. It really was too early for this.

“Hello?” she said expectantly into the receiver.

A gentle, husky voice greeted her. “Ah, Emma!” The voice lingered, seemed to be savouring the word. “So good to hear from you. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

It took Emma a moment to place where she’d heard the voice before. “Mrs Daugeron?” She ventured.

A laugh. “So you do remember! Sorry to contact you so unexpectedly, dear, but…” A sigh. “As I said, it’s my daughter. She’s been in the hospital for a few days now. We don’t know how serious it is yet…” Another sigh. “I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing, but I do worry so,”

She paused, then continued, “In any case, I thought it might help lift her spirits to see an old familiar face again. You could be a big help if you came to visit,”

A prickle of alarm cut though the fog in Emma’s head, creeping up the back of her skull. Part of her wanted to insist she didn’t have the time – it was almost certainly what her publisher would have wanted her to say – but she was done, wasn’t she? She’d doggedly resisted her professional duties so far with the release of this last book, and she suspected Camille’s endless patience might break entirely if she used them as an excuse not to visit her friend and then continued to complain and resist immediately afterwards.

And as for Caro… it probably was nothing, really. She knew how parents could get about these things. But then…

“Of course, Mrs Daugeron. I’ll arrange something,” she responded finally. She quickly hung up the phone, leaning back against the reception desk and putting the phone down beside her as she sighed. She rubbed at her eyes again.

Camille picked up her phone with pursed lips. She raised her eyebrows in question when Emma glanced at her.

“You were right,” Emma said by way of explanation. “An old friend of mine. Apparently, she’s in hospital,”

“And you’re going to visit her?”

Emma hummed noncommittally.

“We’ll see,” she said, and sipped at her coffee pensively.

\--

The first thing, she had decided, was to call her parents. If she did go back to her hometown, she’d need someone to stay with, and she didn’t know how long she’d be needed. As reluctant as she was to go back to them, or ask them for anything, she did want to see Caro, whether she was sick or not.

It had turned out, however, that she needn’t have worried; no matter how many times she called, neither of her parents picked up. Of course, that did raise slightly different worries… but she put those out of her mind for now. If they couldn’t be bothered to pick up the phone, then they couldn’t blame her when they didn’t know she was coming.

The next thing was to actually get there. That, as it happened, also wasn’t a problem, since Camille had offered before Emma even had a chance to bring it up.

“Are you sure?” Emma had said, frowning. “What ever happened to ‘responsibility’?”

Camille had raised an eyebrow in question.

“You know,” Emma had continued. “‘Why aren’t you signing, Emma?’, ‘The publishers aren’t happy, Emma’. All that,”

Camille had given her a strange look. “Don’t you think you have a responsibility to your friend?”

So that was that.

Camille had pulled up to where Emma was waiting on the sidewalk, and Emma had gotten in, and the two had begun the long drive to Emma’s hometown with ‘ELDEN’ punched into the sat-nav.

The inside of the bulky red car was startlingly cosy, clean but well-worn. It had a comfortable smell to it. Camille had said it belonged to her dad; clearly, he loved it a great deal.

“So… Who’s your friend? Caro, was it?”

“Hm?” Emma turned from the window, taking her head off her hand. “She’s from high school. We were this whole gang,” she said, gesticulating lazily with the arm that leaned against the door. “Called ourselves ‘the Wreck Kids’.” She grinned at the memory.

Her smile faded as she turned back to the window. “You don’t have real friends when you grow up. You only have acquaintances and… connections,”

Camille kept her eyes resolutely on the road, and said nothing.

A few minutes of fidgeting later, Emma gave in and pulled out her phone, once again dialling her parents’ number. No response.

Camille glanced over. “The neighbours?” she suggested.

Emma shook her head distractedly, eyes still fixed on her phone. “I tried the neighbour over the weekend. He went to check; the house is empty,”

“Don’t worry.” Camille turned slightly towards her, eyes flicking to Emma before settling back on the road. “I’m sure they’ve just gone somewhere. We’ll find them safe and sound,”

Emma sighed as she reached voicemail yet again. She hung up, and put her phone away, admitting defeat for the time being.

“I’ll tell you what,” she said flatly. “This’ll be the first time I’m happy to see them. Or—reassured, at least… they’re _unbearable_ ,”

“When was the last time you saw them?”

“Christmas. Hm… two years ago?”

Camille smiled reassuringly. “They must miss you,”

Emma laughed a little, turning away slightly. She doubted it.

“Well!” she said with an exaggerated gesture, “I’m going to take a nap in the back,”

Camille’s eyes widened in alarm at the unmistakable sound of Emma unbuckling her seatbelt. “I’ll pull over,” she said quickly, after a comical double-take.

Her alarm turned to indignance, and vehement protests, as Emma clambered gracelessly into the backseat, crowding Camille against the door, and very nearly kicking her in the face. Camille shot Emma a disbelieving look in the rear-view mirror as she righted her glasses.

Emma made a show of adjusting herself, getting comfortable in the back. There was even a blanket back there, soft and neatly folded on the seat.

“If you nod off, I’ll flick you,” she told Camille.

“Huh?”

She demonstrated.

“Ow!”

She laughed, and settled herself down for her nap.


	2. Of Reunions pt1

Emma stirred as she felt the car come to a gentle halt, becoming dimly aware of how well-rested she felt as she slowly came to. She knew she usually slept better in cars, and she knew it helped to be around other people, but even then, it was rare that the nightmares stopped completely. She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or suspicious.

She also became distinctly aware of the pinch in her neck as she tentatively unfolded herself from where she had been lying against the car door. She winced as she rubbed at the knot, running her other hand through her hair.

“I was just about to wake you,”

Emma turned, letting her long fringe fall back over the right side of her face. Camille seemed to be holding back an amused smile.

Emma blinked. “We’re here?”

Camille nodded.

Sure enough, a glance through the window opposite her yielded a familiar horizon: the bold, dark rocks that made up the low cliff that she knew led down to the water, the flat, endless grey sky, and on the left, an old lighthouse in the distance. She was far enough away that she couldn’t make out any movement in the ocean, and if she squinted just right, she could pretend it was a still picture, something she’d happened across back in the city. It _was_ picturesque, certainly. Not in the way a postcard is, but like an oil painting, a masterpiece of silhouettes and negative space.

“Do you mind if I stretch my legs?”

“Go ahead.” Camille had followed her gaze, and now seemed entranced by the view out the passenger side window, though she’d surely been able to admire it during the drive. Perhaps she’d never been near the ocean before.

As Emma climbed out, she felt her fringe begin to curl against her face in the damp, salty air, and she pulled up her hood against the wind, before hiding her hands deep in her jacket pockets. She headed for a nearby stone pier that had always looked to her like it had punched its way out from amongst the cliffs, leaving the rocks scattered haphazardly around, some still clinging on. She stood for a moment, watching as the waves crashed over its lowest section, before making her way carefully over the slick ground.

Standing on the end of the pier, the horizon was clearer: a long, featureless line that stretched infinitely in both directions, interrupted only by the distant, severe figure of the lighthouse on its little black island. If she looked straight ahead, she could almost believe that there was no pier, nothing for her to stand on, only the endless push and pull of the waves, roaring beneath her. That if she turned, there would be no Camille, no car, no road, only that same long line separating the pale grey sea from the pale grey sky.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, wondering if, when she opened them again, there would be nothing left but the wind on her face. Wondering if that wouldn’t make things easier.

“Emma?”

She startled, opening her eyes again to find Camille standing beside her. Everything was as she had left it, with the pier below her and the mainland behind her, and the car, and the road, and Elden sprawling beyond.

Finally, her gaze fell back on the water. “It’s strange, is all,” she answered the implicit question. “Being back here, I mean,”

She took a deep breath.

“I’ve spent over a decade avoiding this place… I thought I’d forgotten. But now I’m here it just… snaps back into place like I never left,” she continued.

Camille turned to look at her, expression unreadable. “Is that so bad?”

“No…” Emma frowned. “No, it’s not. That’s why it’s strange,” She turned to meet Camille’s eyes. “Don’t you ever feel like that? When you go home?”

Camille followed her gaze out over the water with her head cocked to the side, sifting through her memories. Now she was here, the sound of the waves seemed less chaotic, just… meditative.

“No, I don’t think I do. I’ve never avoided going back, or had any reason to. So it’s never been a big thing, when I visit,”

“You visit often?”

“Every few weeks.” At Emma’s quizzical look, she continued, “They live in the city. It’s not like coming all the way out here,” she said with a grin.

They stood in silence for a moment.

Camille’s smile was softer when she spoke again.

“This place is beautiful, though. In a wild sort of way.”

Emma hummed quietly in agreement, smiling a little herself. She didn’t know if Camille had heard her over the wind, but the two stood there together for several more minutes, taking in the ever-changing, powerful shapes of the waves around them.

As Emma reached back into her hood, rubbing at her neck again, her mind wandered back to Caro. She was the reason they were here, after all.

Camille seemed to be thinking the same thing as she looked over at Emma.

“Shall we?” she prompted.

Emma nodded in response. As Camille turned back to the car, she took a moment to stretch her arms out, arching her spine like a cat, before following behind her assistant, leaving the ocean to itself.

\--

When the two of them arrived at the hospital, Camille had offered to stay behind in the car, or in the waiting room, or out in the hallway. Emma had insisted vehemently that that was not necessary. As much as she wanted to see Caro, she was uncomfortably aware of how long it had been, _and_ the fact that Caro being in hospital was apparently what it took to get her back here. Caro might not be best pleased, to put it lightly.

So Emma pulled Camille along with her as she entered the room Caro was staying in, still not sure what to say when they finally came face-to-face.

Caro, as it turned out, had her earphones in, and appeared to be asleep, with her head tilted back against the wall and her eyes closed.

Emma stood awkwardly by the side of the bed, not sure how close to approach. She shot a glance back at Camille, who had still insisted on hanging back from the interaction. Camille nodded encouragingly.

Emma took a deep breath. “Caro?”

Caro’s brow furrowed as she lifted her head, taking out her earphones. She cocked her head to the side, listening.

“Is someone there?”

“It’s me, Caro,” Emma responded. “It’s, ah. Emma. Larsimon.”

Caro’s eyes flew open, focusing on Emma vaguely as a grin formed slowly on her face.

“Emma? Seriously? It’s been years!” she laughed. “Welcome home!”

Her gaze swept to the side as she continued, “Is someone else here with you?”

Emma turned to motion for Camille to come closer, shooting her a smug look. Camille rolled her eyes in response, holding back an amused smile as she introduced herself. Caro gave a small wave in Camille’s direction, sliding her eyes closed again, still grinning.

“She’s my assistant,” Emma explained, “She drove me here,”

“Assistant?” Caro raised her eyebrows.

Emma and Camille shared a bemused look.

“… Yes?”

“Sorry.” Caro shook her head a little. “I assumed you were friends. Or dating. Or something.” She paused. “I didn’t know you _had_ an assistant,”

“Friends?” Emma frowned.

“You know how it is,” Camille cut in, “Someone has to keep her out of trouble,”

Caro huffed a laugh.

“Anyway, what are you doing back here? A lot of people thought we’d seen the last of you, especially now you’ve made it big,”

Emma’s frown deepened. “I came to see you.” She had thought that was obvious. “Your mother called,”

“Oh.” Caro turned away slightly. “She’s been acting strange lately. I think,”

“You think?”

“I don’t remember. That’s why I’m… here. I’ve started forgetting things. And my eyesight’s been going, too.” She gestured vaguely at her own head. “So the doctors said I should stay here while they figure out whether there’s… something wrong with my brain, I think,”

She sighed, and turned back towards Emma.

“Anyway, I don’t remember what happened with mum, just that it made me feel… weird,”

Emma hummed. She _had_ thought the call was strange.

Before she could respond, Camille spoke up from behind her. “Do you want us to check on her for you?”

Emma looked back sharply at Camille. Camille raised her eyebrows. Alright then.

“I think… that might be a good idea. If it’s not too much trouble,” Caro said after a moment of thought.

“No, it’s fine. We were planning to stay a while anyway,” Emma said. “Will you—I mean, will you remember we were here?”

Caro laughed. “Near enough. I’ve started keeping a… diary, I guess? On my phone. Mostly just notes when important things happen. Not that much does happen stuck in here,”

Emma gave her own laugh. Some things never changed.

\--

Emma and Camille went straight to Caro’s home after their visit ended, with the promise of returning tomorrow with any news they might have.

As Camille approached the door with a deliberate stride, Emma took a moment to let her eyes roam across the front of the house. It looked, from the outside, at least, like it was abandoned: the dull green paint on the front door was dirty and peeling, the shutters on the windows in similar condition and closed to the world; the garden either side of the path was approaching a state of wilderness, with overgrown, flourishing bushes interspersed with large brown bald patches.

Camille had stopped before she reached the door, motioning for Emma to come forward.

“Fine, fine…” She followed after with her hands in her pockets and her shoulders raised against the wind, eyes still on the rich, dark earth. She could only imagine what kinds of multitudes lived in amongst the wood chippings and fallen leaves.

Emma stole a glance back over her shoulder at Camille as she rang the doorbell, putting her weight behind the push as the dirty metal resisted. Camille gave an encouraging nod.

The two of them grew unsteady as they waited, the minutes ticking on.

Finally, the door opened slowly, just wide enough to reveal Mrs Daugeron’s long, drawn face, her hazel eyes wide and intense.

“Uh. Hello,” Emma began.

Mrs Daugeron’s face split into a wide smile, deepening the wrinkles carved into her cheeks.

“Emma!” She said it like a sigh of relief. “My goodness, I’m so happy to see you,”

“Yeah, we just came from the hospital.” Emma glanced back at Camille again. “Thanks. You know, for calling,”

“The hospital?”

Emma frowned. “Visiting Caro,” she elaborated. Maybe memory problems ran in the family.

“Oh. Of course. Of course, my Caroline.” Mrs Daugeron smiled again, shifting her piercing gaze between Emma and Camille. “Why don’t you two come in and tell me all about it? I’ll make you tea,”

As Emma followed her in, she had the distinct impression that the inside of the house was not connected to the outside. Behind the dirty shutters and curtains hid a brightly-lit, orderly home, all clutter neatly stacked and shelved, leaving behind spotless tables and floors. She knew that, under the imposing eye of the floodlighting, any stain or imperfection would stand out immediately against the whites and pale greens of the décor. It was so antiseptic that she wondered if she’d dreamed leaving the hospital.

“Do sit! Make yourselves comfortable.” Mrs Daugeron gestured towards a homely brown sofa, which somehow looked both incredibly inviting and like it, personally, didn’t _want_ to be sat on. It was surrounded on three sides by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, packed elegantly with books, and the occasional lamp to add to the deluge of luminescence. In front was a low coffee table, standing sentinel over more meticulously straight stacks of books.

As Mrs Daugeron walked through to the kitchen, Emma and Camille hesitantly took their places on the sofa. The light seemed to converge on them in the middle of the room, and despite Mrs Daugeron returning into the room from the corridor in front of them, Emma felt like she was being scrutinised from all angles, the imperfections she added to the tableau being interrogated mercilessly.

Mrs Daugeron set down the tray she was carrying on the coffee table, and took her place opposite the pair. A lean orange cat took the opportunity to settle itself in her lap, kneading at her leg before curling up contentedly. Mrs Daugeron didn’t seem to mind at all. She rested her hand lightly on the back of its neck.

Camille, for her part, seemed perfectly at ease, leaning forward to take her tea with a word of thanks.

“So,” Mrs Daugeron said, her smile never faltering, “Tell me about—my daughter,”

Emma took a moment to think back, absent-mindedly fidgeting with the hems of her sleeves.

“Well,” she began with a glance at Camille, “Mostly she seemed… bored,”

Camille nodded. “She was definitely happy to see us,”

“Happy to see _you_.” Emma laughed nervously, “You two get along great, you’d think _you_ were the one she’s known for years,”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Emma.” Camille rolled her eyes, sitting back with her tea. “She was just as happy to see you,”

Emma’s gaze flicked back to Mrs Daugeron. She was leaning forward slightly, her eyes fixed on them, still wearing the hint of her earlier broad smile. Emma quickly focused back on Camille, turning towards her stiffly.

“Well.” She ran her hand through her hair, briefly closing her eyes against the light haloing her assistant. It made her itch. “We’ll have to go back soon,”

Camille hummed, before suddenly addressing Mrs Daugeron. “That reminds me! She asked us to bring some things, changes of clothes mostly. Would you mind?”

Mrs Daugeron’s blinding smile returned in full force.

“Of course, dear. I’ll get them before you leave.” She took a long sip of her tea. “I hope the journey down here wasn’t too hard…?”

Emma took the opportunity to remember her own tea, hiding behind the delicate china. To Mrs Daugeron’s credit, it was made just the way she liked it. Camille shot her a concerned frown.

“Not at all,” Camille answered, when it became clear Emma wasn’t going to. She grinned, nodding towards Emma as she continued, “This one slept the whole way here, and she’s the only hazard around for miles,”

Emma returned her grin, kicking at her lightly.

“Anyway, now we’re here, we can stick around,” Emma said pensively. “See how Caro gets on for the next while,”

“Oh?” Mrs Daugeron prompted, staring right at Emma. “You’re not needed anywhere else?”

She exchanged a look with Camille. The two of them were the only dark spots in the room; with Emma’s black coat and Camille’s dark, rich hair, they stood out amongst the pastels so well that she was sure everyone in Elden could see their intentions. Maybe they shouldn’t be so careless.

“Nothing that’s more important than Caro for now,” Camille explained, oblivious to the tension in Emma’s shoulders. “We’ve just published the last book in a series, so publicity can afford to wait,”

“I see.” Mrs Daugeron leaned further forward, just slightly. “So, what’s next for you now, Emma?”

Emma finally met her eyes, and held them for a long moment.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I haven’t decided yet,”

Mrs Daugeron just smiled in response.

Then she turned to Camille, for the first time since they’d arrived. “I’ll get those clothes for you, shall I, dear?”

Camille nodded politely. Mrs Daugeron gently displaced the cat from her lap, and left the room.

“Are you alright?” Camille half-whispered, turning to lean in to Emma. “You’ve been acting odd ever since we got here,”

The cat had found its way to the other side of the coffee table, and wound its way around Emma’s legs, before jumping up gracefully onto the couch beside her. It lay itself down between the two of them, seeming content with their company.

Emma frowned. “You’re not creeped out by this place?”

“Why would I be? It’s a perfectly normal house,”

“Exactly! It’s _way_ too normal to be normal,”

Camille matched her frown, eyes sweeping around the room.

“It’s just a house, Emma. I don’t—” She paused. “Oh,”

“Oh?” Emma followed her gaze. The bookshelf to their left was so orderly and unremarkable her eyes wanted to slide off it, as they had when she entered the room. Even forcing herself to look at it, it looked like it had grown there, like it was just some fact of the environment, and any attempt to move or remove it would upset the delicate ecosystem of the room.

Now that it had caught her attention, however, it was inescapable: every single book packed onto the shelf, perfectly vertical, was one of hers. They were all different, too. Whoever had put them there had not only bought all ten books in the series, they had versions published in other languages, and even the ones with variations on the covers. None of them appeared well-read, either, their spines unbroken and no careless folds in the pages.

Looking around the room, the other bookshelves were the same, and a quick check from Camille confirmed the books under the coffee table too. She felt slightly sick.

Camille stood suddenly, holding out her hand. It was a comfort, Emma thought, that Camille was there with her. At least she had someone on her side.

As she stood to follow Camille, Mrs Daugeron appeared in the doorway across from them.

“Here you go, dear,” she said as she handed the folded clothes to Camille, smiling brightly. The cat’s tail gave a leisurely flick at the familiar sound of her husky voice.

Camille thanked her, returning the smile impressively convincingly as she surreptitiously took Emma’s hand.

“We, uh—have to get going,” Emma said. “It’s getting late and my parents don’t know I’m here yet,”

“Of course! Feel free to come back if you need anything else, girls.” Mrs Daugeron’s piercing gaze was once again fixed on Emma. Her pale brown eyes shone with all the lights in the room, reflecting so intensely they seemed to radiate their own light as she gestured them towards the door.

Emma nodded, and kept her head down, letting Camille lead the way.

The moment they were across the threshold, Emma could breathe easier. Like walking out of a greenhouse, she thought. She wondered what kind of lifeform was being cultivated in that harsh climate.  
She certainly preferred it out here. Things grew out here, as messy as it was; it was real.

The two of them sat in silence for a moment, once they got back to Camille’s car. Emma ran a hand through her hair and rubbed at her eyes, taking her time. She turned to Camille after a deep breath, greeted with soft dark eyes, full of concern and anxiety.

“Where to?”

“Let’s go see my parents. We have to at some point,”


	3. Of Reunions pt2

Emma exited the car with a sour expression, closing the door behind her decisively. She stood, feet planted firmly as she waited for Camille to walk around the car, and sized up the house as if she was about to fight it.

Her parents’ house stood away from the rest of Elden, surrounded by sparse woodland at the end of a winding dirt road that was, at the moment, covered with leaves. The stone walls Emma knew were white had looked, as Camille pulled up next to the old shed, a pale shade of grey. Other than that, though, she had to give her parents credit: it looked well-kept, with its broad windows clean and the bushes that lined the stairs up to the front door a deep, healthy shade of green. To top it off, there was even a stack of firewood at the foot of the stairs. The very picture of homeliness.

She gave a curt nod as Camille joined her. Camille returned an encouraging, if awkward, smile.

The two of them made their way across to the stone steps which appeared, from close up, much more imposing than they had from the car. There was something final about them, like it was some kind of pre-threshold, and climbing them would determine their fates before they ever even got to the door.

The door itself, as it turned out, was unlocked, and the two of them followed the sounds of humming as they made their way in. The inside of the house seemed bigger than Emma had remembered, full of twists and turns and connections between rooms, all of which she recognised, but which seemed somehow to replicate behind her back as she and Camille wound between them.

They found her mother in the kitchen, bathed from underneath in the gentle orange glow of the oven beside her, and swaying occasionally as she hummed her way through the dishes. The sight of it was familiar in some ways, but the unguardedness of it struck Emma in a way she didn’t expect. She wondered why she’d never seen her that way before.

She allowed herself a quiet, resigned sigh before knocking on the doorframe.

Mrs Larsimon startled as she saw them. So much for ‘unguarded’; you could see the barriers raise one by one.

“Emma!” She smiled hesitantly. “I… didn’t expect to see you,”

Emma turned away almost immediately, her gaze fixing on an unobtrusive patch of floor. She flexed her hands to try to relieve some of the awkward tension. It didn’t work.

“I tried calling. All weekend,” she said flatly.

“Ah, sorry. We were away,”

“Away?”

Mrs Larsimon frowned. “We haven’t heard from you in over a year, Emma. We go about our lives,”

Emma turned to lean back against the doorframe, taking a deep breath. In fairness, this is exactly as well as she had expected this to go.

“Why were you calling?”

She sighed. “Caro. We went to see her,”

“Ah.” Her mother’s gaze fell. “We heard about her. It’s good you visited,”

Emma nodded wordlessly.

“Why don’t we talk about it over dinner? And of course, your—partner can join us.” She smiled encouragingly over Emma’s shoulder at Camille.

Emma cut in. “No, that’s—that’s CamCam, she’s my assistant.” This was already exhausting.

“You like stuffed tomatoes, CamCam?”

Camille’s eyes had been darting back and forth between the two of them, a little helplessly, eyebrows raised behind the thin frames of her glasses. Emma hadn’t seen her at such a loss before.

She hesitated. “Yes?”

Thirty minutes and several repetitive questions later, Emma’s father had joined the three of them at the kitchen table. With the oven off, the only light in the room came from the small bulbs under the cupboards, meant to light the kitchen’s workspace. She supposed it was meant to be cosy and intimate, but the light had a sickly quality to it, and the dimness threw everyone’s faces into partial shade. It hurt her eyes trying to see them.

Emma’s mother sat, back straight and elegant, opposite Camille, who had, Emma knew, receded back into her professional role. She didn’t seem to know what to do with any of them, now they were all together. She let her eyes roam over the table freely, taking in everything with a hesitant, but polite, smile.

Mrs Larsimon turned suddenly to her husband, sitting on her left, with a look of vague concern.

“It didn’t ring,”

Emma frowned. “What?”

“Because it’s unplugged.” Mr Larsimon’s voice was brusque and business-like, as ever. He was hunched over his plate, like he wanted nothing more than to be left alone.

“What didn’t ring?” Emma spoke up, louder this time.

“The alarm,” Mrs Larsimon clarified. She turned to Emma with a look of pride, and a slight grin. “Your father installed an alarm,”

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma could see a matching grin slide onto Camille’s face.

“You did, did you?” Emma said flatly. “You don’t trust people now?” She met her father’s eyes, her jaw set.

“Not at all, anymore.” He leaned towards his wife. “I watch the news these days and I feel like I’m in a horror movie,”

“Like one of your stories!” Mrs Larsimon turned her gentle smile back on Emma.

Emma sighed inwardly, before meeting her mother’s eyes. She was trying, at least. “I’ve stopped writing horror, actually. I want to write something else,”

“Really?” Emma tensed at her father’s pointed question. “What will you write about?”

“I don’t know, I’m waiting for a revelation,”

She glanced back at Camille. She seemed to be hiding behind her wineglass, her expression carefully neutral.

Emma tried again. “We, uh, went to see Caro’s mother too. She has a cat now,”

Mrs Larsimon’s smile brightened. She turned conspiratorially to Camille, and explained, “Emma knows I’ve always wanted a cat,”

Camille smiled again, genuinely.

“It was orange,” Emma continued, “And very friendly. Mrs Daugeron was acting a little strange, though,”

Mr Larsimon quirked his head to the side with a hint of a grimace. “What do you expect after what you did?”

“That had nothing to do with her,” she snapped, nausea building. “She never even saw it,”

“And what about the people who did? Like your mother—”

“Give me a break, okay?” Mr Larsimon stared across the table at her intently. She turned to her mother. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”

Mrs Larsimon nodded emphatically.

“Mum knows I was young.” Her father said nothing. Her voice rose. “She knows I said sorry—”

“ _Let’s_ talk about something else!” Mrs Larsimon cut in firmly. “Alright? It’s been a long time, let’s just forget it.” She looked pointedly at her husband.

“Everybody makes mistakes, that’s life. What matters is _now_. We’re all here,” She continued, glancing around the table at all of them in turn. “I’m serving a meal. And I would like to have a nice, harmless conversation. Like anyone would. Is that too much to ask?”

Emma shook her head slightly.

“Now! Who will start talking about something _nice_ –” she fixed her husband with that stare again, “– and harmless?”

She looked around the table at the three of them, her pale, clear blue eyes intense and imposing in a way Emma didn’t usually see. Though, she supposed, she didn’t usually see them at all. She had long considered that to be a good thing, if this was going to be the result of her visiting.

Camille was hiding again; who knew what she thought.

“Alright,” Mrs Larsimon said after a moment. “Think about it. I’ll get the flan,”

She stood from the table, leaving the tension to itself.

“There’ll be enough for ten people. We’ve had a lot of cherries this year,”

\--

Mrs Larsimon had insisted she treat Emma and Camille to a cup of tea before they retired up to her old bedroom. Emma, however, decided she rather regretted not taking the opportunity to finish her wine at dinner; the ensuing awkwardness rather ruined anything that might have been nice about the evening, to say nothing of the fact that she saw it coming from miles away.

Camille, at least, had found her element, keeping Emma’s mother occupied with idle chatter that Emma mostly tuned out, though she remembered hearing something about her last book release. She and her father, from what she could tell, had formed a shaky truce after what her mother had said, resolutely ignoring each other. That suited Emma just fine.

When she finally led the way up to her room, she watched intently as Camille took it all in, her eyes roaming over the strange amalgamation of her teen years. The walls were a delicate pink to match the compartmentalised shelves and the desk, full of simple, utilitarian shapes. The shelves were still, after all these years, home to the haphazard piles of books, which unwittingly laid bare the timeline of Emma’s discovery of horror fiction, and even some of her earliest drafts of her own writing inserted into the pages she’d found her inspiration in.

She’d covered up patches of the walls with posters, most of them stark black and white, with large, dramatic words. She smiled a little at the sight of them; in the few visits she’d had since she left, she’d never once thought to take them down. Now that she saw them from Camille’s eyes, they seemed almost cute.

After getting ready for bed, the two of them found themselves lying side-by-side, Emma on her old bed, Camille on a spare mattress on the floor beside her, using a repurposed cushion as a pillow.

Emma stretched to turn off the small reading lamp by her bed, leaving the pair bathed in the deep blue wash of indirect moonlight. After a moment, a bright, ethereal glow filled the room, almost pink, before it faded again, like a great eye blinking gently open and closed.

“It’s just the old lighthouse,” Emma said softly. “You get used to it,”

The light swept across them in steady intervals, as the distant lens made its rounds, checking in on them every few seconds.

Camille's voice barely broke the silence when she spoke, the words seeming to float up into the room and saturate the air around them.

“You know… you said they’re unbearable, but they’re not. They’re just sad,”

Emma stared wordlessly up at the ceiling, shifting to rest her head back on her arm.

“They didn’t want you to leave,” Camille continued. “You left,”

Emma’s chest ached a little. She turned her head to face Camille.

“You’re in no position to get involved in my private life,” she said sternly, eyebrows raised.

Camille raised her own eyebrows in answer. “I’m on the floor in your childhood bedroom. After having dinner with your parents.”

She looked different in the dark, and different without her glasses on. Maybe she couldn’t see as clearly now, but she had wasted no opportunity to observe while she could. Her eyes, now a deep black, held a wisdom that would have been overwhelming from anyone else, lit from beneath by the rhythmic shafts from the window. There was no judgement there, though, not that Emma could see.

She turned her body to face Camille on the mattress beneath her.

“Everyone here is mad at me. But you’re here with me.” She bit her lip, worrying it a little. “Thank you,”

Camille smiled back at her, just slightly, but it was radiant in the dark.

“Does that make us friends after all?” Emma grinned a little, though she felt a squeeze of anxiety in her chest as she said it.

Camille huffed a gentle laugh, smile widening. “I think it does,”

Emma turned back onto her back with a contented sigh, relaxing back against her arms.

“Good night,” she said quietly.

“Good night, Emma,”

\--

She sat, cross-legged on the end of the pier, the lighthouse illuminating her intermittently. It was bright, brighter than she’d remembered, a cold white light piercing in the dark, but when she looked out to sea, it revealed nothing.

The only indication that the sea was there was the distant, regular crash of the waves that, in the darkness, sounded like breathing.

“Emma,”

The voice startled her, even after all these years. It was so familiar, and yet she forgot to dread it, it seemed, every time.

She stood, and turned slowly, heart in her throat.

The town was distant, the pier longer than she’d ever seen it, stretching all the way to the black skyline. Silhouetted in front was a figure, as tall and imposing and distant as the lighthouse itself.

Marianne stood on the pier, black against the deep night sky. A sweep of the lighthouse revealed nothing but the mask that covered her eyes, a cross burned into it front and centre. Another sweep saw her raise a pale hand towards Emma, half reaching, half accusing.

“You must write me, Emma,”

Emma shook her head. She couldn’t do that again. She couldn’t allow her nightmares to take over her waking life any more than they already had.

She was finally free. She had to be.

“Then I’ll take something else,”

Marianne lowered her hand with a finality. The stark light returned once more, and revealed two new figures behind her. Emma couldn’t make out their faces in the distance, but she had a sickly feeling that she knew who they were.

“I can’t… I can’t write,” she responded helplessly. “I killed Lizzie,”

Marianne raised her hand again, and as the gaze of the lighthouse swept past a final time, Emma felt a push on her chest. She grabbed at the air as she lost her balance, falling backwards off the end of the pier.

The water was warm, but it felt distant even as it surrounded her.

“You will write me, Emma,”


	4. Of Memories

Emma woke slowly, half of her face buried deep in her pillow, impeding her vision as she blearily opened her eyes. The hand that lay gently on her shoulder belonged to Camille, her glasses back on and smiling a little.

“It’s nearly ten, Emma.” Her eyes were torn between amusement and apology.

Emma groaned as she sat up, rubbing at her eyes. “Is there coffee?”

“I didn’t hear your parents get up, so I doubt it.” Camille grinned. “But we can make some,”

Emma gave a long-suffering sigh. She ran her hand through her side fringe, combing it loosely into shape. At least the rest of her hair was short enough that it didn’t get bed-head. It made it that much easier to roll out of bed and still look professional.

“Alright,” she finally conceded. “Let’s go be adults,”

The two of them made their way back down to the kitchen still in their sleep clothes. Emma stopped for a moment, letting Camille go ahead as she checked in her parents’ room. They weren’t there, though the bed was unmade. Maybe they’d got up before Camille was awake.

Sure enough, though, there was no inviting smell of coffee as she made her way down the stairs, and she found Camille leaning expectantly against the table.

“Where do you keep your coffee?”

In answer, Emma walked past her, and opened the cupboard directly across from the door, searching on her tiptoes as Camille joined her. She pulled down the container, and sent an imploring look towards her assistant.

Camille took the container with an exasperated smile. “I’ll make your coffee if you get breakfast started.” She knocked her hip against Emma’s, as if to spur her on.

Emma gave a gravelly hum as she set about getting out the ingredients she’d need for crepes. She hadn’t bothered to actually cook herself breakfast in years. She might be a little rusty.

“When did you get up, then?”

“Hm?” Camille turned from where she was measuring out the coffee grounds. “Oh, a of couple hours ago,”

Emma frowned. “Weren’t you bored? What have you been doing?”

Camille pushed the button on the coffee pot with a satisfied flourish, before turning to face Emma.

“I’ve been reading one of your books. Well,” she huffed a laugh, “Not _your_ books. One of the ones in your room. I’ve wanted to read it for a while. I, uh. Hope you don’t mind,”

She rubbed at her shoulder self-consciously.

Emma hesitated. “You didn’t read any of the loose bits of paper, right?”

“No! No, I assumed those were private,”

“Then it’s fine.” She paused a moment. “That reminds me, I’ve been meaning to ask…”

Camille walked over to where Emma was pulling out a small frying pan, prompting her with a hum. Emma took a moment to lean down to find the button for the stove before she popped up and continued, laying the pan over the now steadily heating ring.

“If you don’t like horror, what do you read?”

“Oh!” Camille grinned, leaning her hip against the counter. “Well… anything else, really. Depends on my mood when I walk into the bookstore. Or what people recommend,”

She paused, eyebrows furrowing as she thought.

“It’s usually fiction,” she continued. “I like autobiographies, though. And cookbooks,”

“You read cookbooks for fun?”

Camille shoved her lightly. “How will I know the recipes if I don’t read them?”

Emma laughed as she righted herself. Now that she was awake enough to engage in conversation, she could appreciate how much brighter the room was during the day. The last rays of grey light in the evening had entirely avoided the kitchen window, the night setting in that much faster because of it. Now, though, the late morning sun streamed in delicately through the thin, pale blue curtains, filling the room with the comfortable, cool light of early autumn.

As the two of them sat down to eat, Camille adjusted her glasses, the heat from the stove now permeating the air.

“Your parents won’t mind us using their kitchen, I hope?”

Emma paused, looking up at Camille. “Well. I don’t know what else they expect us to do,” she said. “ _They’re_ not here to make breakfast,”

She took a long-awaited sip of her coffee, savouring the rich flavour.

Camille frowned. “They’re not here? At all?”

“Nope,”

“Are you… not worried?” She tilted her head in confusion.

“They’re probably out.” Emma waved her off. “They ‘go about their lives’, remember?”

Camille went slowly back to her breakfast, adjusting her glasses again.

“They’ll be back soon, okay? It’s not like there’s signs of a struggle,”

“… Right,”

\--

Emma made her way promptly after they finished breakfast. She’d decided she’d rather walk to the hospital today, and she didn’t want to get there so late she missed her time to visit. Camille had agreed, and decided, for her part, to stay at home and catch up on work, in case Emma’s parents came home while she was out.

“You can call me any time, though, if you need me,” she’d said with a smile, handing Emma the bag she’d put Caro’s clothes in.

Emma allowed herself her own small, inward smile as she started her journey in earnest, her hands finding their familiar place in the pockets of her long coat. It was warmer in the woods, the sea wind deadened by the trees, but the first hints of autumnal chill were making themselves known, even in the sunlight that was now unfiltered by the bare branches. She had her hood down today, though; she wanted to enjoy the freshness of the air as much as she could before it got too cold.

She had meant what she said last night, about Camille’s dependability. It was something she was used to not having, since she’d left this place all those years ago, and she’d never really come back until now. No matter how many times she’d ‘visited’, she’d never had the courage to reconnect with her old friends, and her time with her parents was a chore she’d wanted to finish as soon as possible.

Having an assistant, though, that was new. And she could no longer deny to herself that Camille was going above and beyond her job description. It really did seem like she cared. Like she wanted to help.

Emma had come to depend on it, she knew, over the last six months. Especially recently, as she neared the end of her last book. Camille really had been an invaluable support while she siphoned the last of Lizzie out of her system, even if she didn’t know why she was needed so much. But she wasn’t leaving, even though she was starting to find out. That alone was a comforting thought.

Emma set the bag down beside her, stopping and sitting on a stray log to retie her shoelace. She hadn’t taken a walk like this in ages. You couldn’t do it in the city, not the way you could out here. She’d forgotten how much she missed the freedom of it.

She’d considered these woods _her_ space for a long while, especially as a teenager. Coming back like this now, really immersing herself in her old life, it felt like she’d abandoned them. Like they’d missed her too.

A flash of movement to her right caught her attention, pulling her abruptly from her thoughts. A moment passed, and the figure approached, rather more slowly, revealing itself to be a familiar lithe orange cat.

“Hello, you.” Emma grinned as the cat nudged at her thigh, before sitting down beside her. It stared off into the trees in front of them, looking comfortably attentive to the sounds of the woods. Its ears gave the occasional twitch as the light wind excited the leaves around them.

She tentatively laid a hand on the back of its neck, as she’d seen Mrs Daugeron do. It raised its head slightly at the attention, closing its eyes in approval as she gave a gentle scratch.

“What do you think, hm?” she continued. “You liked Camille well enough, didn’t you? Just like everyone else here… or just everyone,”

She turned to the cat, and explained, very matter-of-factly, “Everyone likes Camille,”

The cat turned to look back at her, its eyes calmly alert. It seemed to understand.

Emma nodded sagely. “You see? We should probably… give her a raise or something. She’s earned it.” She smiled gently at the thought.

“Although,” she said suddenly as a thought struck her, pricking up the cat’s ears in attention, “I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced, you and I.”

She laughed a little. “Maybe I shouldn’t be leaving these decisions up to you,” she said in mock-seriousness as her hand shifted lazily to find the front of the cat’s leather collar.

Finding the pendent, she hummed absent-mindedly as she leaned in to read the engraving.

“Pumpkin, huh?” She couldn’t help but smile at the name. It was what she might have named it when she was little.

She turned the pendant over, another engraving smooth under her fingers.

“If lost, return to… Marianne,” she read. She frowned, cogs ticking away in her head as she struggled to switch gears.

Finally, her good mood dissolved into nauseated dread as she made the connection, and she dropped the tag, taking her hand off the cat as if it was poisonous.

A knot of tension found its home between her shoulders. She refused to look at the cat, instead crossing her arms tightly, protectively, and staring off resolutely into the woods that now just seemed… cold.

Another nudge almost made her jump. A glance down revealed a little orange head at her thigh, laying on a little white paw, and gazing up at her imploringly. She turned away petulantly, and hunched her shoulders inwards just a little more.

“I’m not gonna pet you, you wily little bastard,” she said, finally looking down in annoyance as it stubbornly refused to move. “She sent you, didn’t she? She wants you to spy, is that it?”

Pumpkin’s mottled golden-green eyes stared up at her, pupils wide. It almost looked like a normal cat.

She gave an exaggerated roll of the eyes. “Fine,” she said, her hand once again finding the back of its neck, though with the lightest possible contact of fingertips. It certainly still felt like a normal cat, comfortably warm under its soft fur. She considered this suspicious, to say the least.

She allowed her hand to rest on it properly.

“This doesn’t mean I trust you,” she told it sternly, running her hand down its back. It responded with a low, satisfied rumble.

A moment passed, and she gave a gentle pat to the cat’s side. “Come on, I’ve gotta go,” she said.

Pumpkin raised its head, blinking at her in curiosity as she stood, shoving her hands back in her jacket pockets and reclaiming the bag of Caro’s clothes.

“You coming?” She quirked her head in the vague direction of the hospital.

Pumpkin gave a chirp as it leapt off the log to twine around Emma’s legs. She gave a light, half-hearted nudge with her foot before she started off. Even if it was Marianne’s cat, it was probably going a bit far to kick at it.

The two of them fell into step with ease.

“What’s she doing here, anyway? Is she really pretending to be Mrs Daugeron?” She glanced down at her new companion. “That seems low, even for her,”

It would explain why Caro had said her mother was acting strange. And, she thought, why Caro was sick. She knew Marianne wasn’t above hurting people to get what she wanted.

“I bet you know all sorts of deep, dark secrets, don’t you?”

The cat gazed serenely up at her for a moment, before looking ahead again. If it could understand her, it gave no sign of it.

Emma took a deep breath before she tried one last time. “Did she really take my parents?”

Pumpkin stopped, giving another little chirp as the two came to the edge of the woods.

Emma turned and crouched. “Not telling, huh?” She scratched gently at its neck, grinning despite herself.

She paused, sobering as she stood again. “Well, tell her I’m not writing. If _she_ wants me to, it can’t be a good idea,”

Pumpkin only wound itself around her legs, rubbing at her ankles.

The two of them walked in silence the rest of the way to the hospital. Emma couldn’t see anyone else around, but she didn’t want to know what they’d think of her if they saw her talking to a cat. Though, she thought, maybe their opinions of her were as bad as they could get. It might not really make a difference.

As they neared the hospital, Pumpkin gave her legs one more affectionate rub, before dashing off in the direction of Caro’s mother’s house.

\--

Emma found Caro in a similar state as she’d been in the previous day: eyes closed, head back, listening to something on her phone. Today, though, she only had one of the earbuds in. Emma smiled to herself at the thought that Caro might have been looking forward to seeing her, even if it was just because she was bored.

“Hey, Caro. I’m back,”

“Emma!” Caro’s face lit up as she raised her head and took out her earbud. “I was wondering if you’d make it! Two visits in as many days, you must really be serious about this,” she said with an impish grin.

Emma laughed, rubbing at her neck self-consciously.

“Is Camille with you again?”

“Hm? No, she stayed home. Catching up on work, I think.” She paused. “Is it… okay that I came alone?”

Caro laughed, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion. “Of course it is! What kind of question is that?”

“Right…”

Emma stood for a moment, not sure how else to respond.

“I, ah, brought that change of clothes you asked for,” she said, lifting the bag and rustling it a little. “Where do you want me to—y’know. Put it?”

“Hm. Is there space on here?” Caro knocked at the front of the bedside table.

“If I move some things around…?”

Emma waited for a nod of confirmation before she set about the task of creating a space large enough for the folded clothes.

“Thanks.” Caro laughed. “I’ve tripped over enough things in the last few months to learn my lesson about putting things on the floor,”

“A few _months_?” Emma frowned as she took her seat beside the bed. “It’s been going on for that long?”

Caro hummed, leaning her head back against the wall. “It’s been kinda going on for… I think a little over a year now? It’s hard to tell, though. It was pretty slow, so I don’t think I noticed it for a while in the beginning,”

“So why are you only in hospital now? Why not before?”

“Well. For a while I just thought I needed glasses. But recently it got bad enough that I couldn’t really put it off any more,”

Emma paused. “How bad?”

“Bad enough that I need my diary to remember things that happened ten minutes ago.” Caro chuckled, holding up her phone. “And bad enough that I can’t focus on anything no matter how close it is,”

“So what do you see instead?”

“Just… silhouettes, really. Really fuzzy silhouettes. And the hospital lights hurt my eyes if I keep them open too long, so usually not even that.”

She paused. “Was there… something else we were going to talk about? I thought there was something important,”

“Oh, ah. You asked us to check on your… mother,”

Caro snapped her fingers. “Yes, that was it! How is she?”

Emma hesitated. “Well… _I_ thought she _was_ acting strange. Like you said. Camille didn’t seem to think so, though. At least not for a while,”

Caro gave a resigned sigh.

“Strange how?”

“She seemed… unusually interested in us. Like she brought us here just to spy on us or something. And…”

“And?”

“Hm. Have you—” Emma hesitated again. “Have you read my books?”

“I… read a couple of the early ones? But what does that have to do with anything?”

“Your mum… I mean, your house is _full_ of them. She’s obsessed. She even called herself Marianne,”

Caro sat up straighter, frowning.

“She actually told you her name was Marianne?”

Emma wrung her hands. “Well—no, but she put Marianne’s name on her cat’s collar,”

“Cat? What—hang on.” Caro paused, hunching over to rub at her eyes. “I think… that might be one of the things I thought was strange. You know, when I asked you to check on her,”

“What was?”

She leaned forward against her outstretched legs, holding her face in her hand as she tried to recall. Emma thought her face might crack from the force of its frown.

“The cat was… new, I think. A while after I first started having these problems. But she’s never really liked animals before, at least not enough to want a pet. So I thought it was weird when she just brought it home one day out of nowhere,”

She paused. “I don’t know if I ever saw the collar, though. That’s very worrying,”

Emma hummed in agreement. She turned away slightly, letting her eyes roam over the bare walls and the various medical equipment by the other beds.

She startled a little as Caro spoke again.

“Marianne is one of your characters, isn’t she? That’s where she got it from,”

“That’s right,” she said. “She’s the villain. A witch,”

Caro hummed thoughtfully.

“You told us about her when we were kids, remember?” She grinned a little wistfully. “It’s kind of funny to think you’re still telling people about her after all these years,”

“Funny?”

“Well, you know. No matter what, we’re all still… us. That’s kind of weird. Kind of cool,”

Emma chuckled, rubbing at her neck. “You wouldn’t be saying that if you could see me. I look _nothing_ like I used to,”

“Oh, really?” Her grin turned mischievous again as she leaned back with her arms crossed. “You should ask the others, then. See what they say! They’ll know I’m right,”

“The others? You guys still hang out?”

“Of course! Not right now, obviously… but you should go see them! Let them know the gang’s all back together again,” she laughed.

“Well. We’re not all back together if you’re not there,”

“Sure I am! I’m there in spirit.” Her smile softened, just slightly. “Pour one out for me, and I’ll come with when they let me out of here. You’re staying at least that long, right?”

Emma’s chest tightened.

“Yeah. I am,”

“So go have fun! Here—” Caro pushed herself up. “Let me walk you out. I _really_ need to stretch my legs,”

Emma got up hesitantly. “Do you… need a hand?”

“If you don’t mind?” Caro paused. “Oh, before you go… did you bring those clothes I asked for?”

“Yeah, they’re—on the bedside table,”

She reached over to feel for the bag.

“Right. Thanks.” She deposited her phone on the table next to the bag.

She took Emma’s arm as the two of them made their way towards the door.


	5. Of Peace and Mistakes

Emma sat, facing the sea, on the old boat-wreck. It had been part of the landscape as long as she’d known, just another natural formation on the cliffside, slowly and steadily gathering sand, and grit, and the graffiti carved into the thin planks that still clung to the structure. It wasn’t quite skeletal – she’d seen wrecks like that, down on the patches of pale beach, stripped of all their wooden flesh by the rocks – instead, it had a timeless quality to it. Like nothing could touch it, not really, not even the dozens of kids who had come and gone, leaving their marks.

Out in the open, this close to the jagged edges of the cliff, she felt the wind in full force, the chill of it biting into her hands and grounding her. Her lips cracked in it as she took her slow sips of the beer she’d brought with her. It even worked its way into her hood, chilling the back of her neck despite its protection.

The sky in front of her was bluer than it had been yesterday, shafts of pale light shining through the soft patchwork of clouds. It made the waves seem calmer, somehow, even though she could see them to be just as relentless as they’d ever been. There was a richness to it, a contentedness to let her stay as long as she needed its company.

She’d lost count of how many times she’d ended up here in her teenage years, both alone and with her friends. It was a place of freedom, where reality was far away, and even the mainland behind the thin arm of rock that held the wreck was wild and untouched. All that existed was the uneven ground, the wind, and the infinite horizon.

She’d never come back, though, even when she did visit Elden. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe it just felt too much like getting back into old habits. Like she might get comfortable if she let herself.

She still wasn’t sure about meeting up with the rest of the gang. Caro on her own was one thing, but all of them…

After a good half-hour of sitting alone, she’d half-convinced herself she’d leave before they even got there. If they even did get there, that was. How did she know they didn’t meet somewhere else now? Somewhere adult and proper, somewhere people with jobs went. She didn’t think she could handle that.

“Emma!”

The call came from the mainland behind her. She turned to see the distant figure in its long coat and thick, woollen hat, raising a hand to wave across the gap.

“Stay there! I’m coming over!” he yelled, before setting off at a jog to where the narrow cliff jutted out in parallel to the coastline.

Her eyes tracked him as he slowed, taking his place gently next to her. His face, as it lowered into her field of view, was lit by a fond smile that was threatening to open into a radiant grin.

She smiled tentatively. “Hey, Séby,”

“You know, it’s been fifteen years and a hundred and twenty-two days exactly,” he told her matter-of-factly.

“You’ve been counting?”

He shrugged, his grin turning sheepish. “I subtracted,”

Emma turned back to the sea. Now that he was here, she didn’t know what to say. He didn’t seem to mind, though.

“It’s good that you came. That you were with Caro,”

She startled when he spoke again, turning back to face him. Despite the twinge of anxiety in her chest, his face showed nothing but the same earnest smile he’d come there with.

“She told you?”

He nodded. “She said I’d find you here,”

She gave a forced laugh. Apparently Caro had been serious about bringing them all together.

“So,” he began, “How have you been in fifteen years? What’s changed?”

Another laugh. “I became rich and hot,”

“I’d say you’re softer,”

“I’m… not sure everyone else would agree,”

He paused, scrutinising her with playfully exaggerated seriousness.

“Let’s do a survey, then,”

At her frown, he nodded back at the mainland behind them. Three new figures stood on the horizon behind them, all dressed up against the wind. From what she could see across the distance, Aurore had her head down and her hands in her pockets, holding her arms as tightly against her body as she could over her coat. Arnaud was grinning smugly in just the way she used to recognise. Tonio just gave a small wave.

“Aurore said Emma wouldn’t be here,” Arnaud yelled, before turning to Aurore where she stood beside him, laughing. “Aurore lied. Emma Larsimon is _here_!” He raised an arm to point joyously across the gap.

Séby waved them over with a chuckle, raising his eyebrows surreptitiously at Emma as the three of them walked over to the wreck.

Aurore sat between Emma and Séby, still not looking at her. Arnaud took his place in front of them, though, standing with great ceremony with his arms spread as his brother took his seat on Emma’s other side.

The wreck was a lot more crowded now that they were all adults. Emma found she didn’t mind, though. It was nice to be close to people again.

“Friends,” Arnaud began dramatically, “What would Caro want us to do today? In your opinion? Cry?” The neck of a bottle peeked out from the depths of his backpack. “Or down some booze?”

“I’d say guzzle some booze,” Emma answered promptly.

The bottle appeared in all its glory, revealing the murky white liquid inside, presented with a slightly flat “Tah-dah!”

“Oof,” Emma laughed. “It’s been a _long_ time!”

Séby raised his eyebrows in mock-seriousness. “Not nearly long enough. It’s _bad_ ,”

“It’s tradition,” Arnaud cut in matter-of-factly, handing the backpack to Tonio with a flourish. “Little brother, if you will?”

Tonio gave a grin, and set about handing out the small glasses. Emma’s heart ached a little at how easy it was to fall back into this, into them. She’d been surprised enough at how eager Caro had been to let her back in, but all the rest of them too…? She thought at least there had to be some kind of catch.

Arnaud, taking his now-full glass, assumed his place in front of them once more. He held it up, his face finally taking on a more down-to-earth aspect. Emma glanced at the others beside her before following suit, taking down her hood as she did.

“Caro,” he began. “Though we don’t get why this is happening to you, you brought us together. And… until you can join us, we’ll celebrate you in the way you deserve,”

A hint of a grin slipped onto his face again as he turned out to the sea.

“We drink until the sun sets!”

\--

Another hour or so at the wreck and some gentle prodding from Séby saw Camille approaching the group with the air of someone who was delighted to have been invited, but wasn’t sure what it was she had been invited to.

Arnaud, whose prodding had been rather less gentle, stood suddenly from where he had, at length, found himself reclining against the others’ legs. Coming back to himself from his moment of dumbstruck staring, he hastily gathered up the bottle and remaining glasses, jogging over to where Camille had come to a stop a respectful distance away from the wreck.

“Welcome, stranger,” he said with a theatrical bow.

Camille gave a polite smile as she turned to face him. “Thank you…?”

“Some booze?” He held out a spare glass.

“Excuse me?”

Séby chuckled inwardly, before cutting in. “Don’t take it, it’s disgusting!” he yelled along the thin stretch of land, his own full glass plainly in view.

“It’s _tradition_!” Arnaud yelled back. He handed the glass to Camille, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly in Séby’s direction as he poured out the shot.

Camille hesitantly clinked her glass against Arnaud’s, looking less and less sure that she’d come to the right place. Arnaud knocked back his own shot with practiced ease as Camille took a small, tentative sip that barely diminished the contents of the glass.

A slow chuckle made its way along the wreck as the group surveyed her reaction. To her credit, she managed to avoid the expression that crumpled her face in disgust for several seconds, turning away from Arnaud as if to spare him the offense. He gave a toothy grin before leading the way to the wreck, Camille following after as she recovered, trying not to cough.

As time crawled on, the group loosened, Séby standing to join Arnaud in front of the wreck to face Camille where she sat. Aurore had wandered down the little hill that the boat sat on to perch on the edge of the cliff, legs swinging slowly and pensively where they hung over the ridge.

Emma clambered after her some time later, breaking off from where the conversation seemed to be getting along just fine without her. She sat inelegantly beside Aurore, squinting out at the flat, blue horizon, vibrant and just short of glaring in the sun as the afternoon wore on.

“ _Is_ Camille pretty?” she said without preamble.

“Huh?” Aurore craned her neck to look over her shoulder, raising her head for the first time Emma had seen all afternoon. “Yes, I think so,”

Emma turned back out to sea, grinning lazily. “No worries. She’s taken,”

“Why would I worry?”

“Nono is suddenly charming again, right?” She nudged at Aurore with her shoulder.

Aurore dropped her head again, shrugging half-heartedly. Emma’s grin fell away.

“You still mad?”

“What for?”

She emptied her glass. “You know…”

Aurore hesitated. “No, it was fifteen years ago,” she said quickly. “Kids’ mistakes,”

“Right,”

Aurore turned to face her, taking a deep breath to steel herself.

“It’s cool. That you came.” She didn’t quite smile, but her dark eyes were earnest and held Emma’s gaze steadily. “It’s… responsible,”

Emma returned the gentle hint of a smile, turning back to the sea. She leaned her head heavily on Aurore’s shoulder, watching the crash of the waves on the rocks beneath them. A warmth made its way through her chest when she felt Aurore relax into it, laying her head gently on top of Emma’s.

As the two of them sat listening to the spray of the sea, the conversation from the group still at the wreck wafted down to them.

“She was _wild_ when she was young,” Arnaud was telling an intrigued Camille.

“Aurore had the Mohawk,”

“Yeah, but Aurore was _nice_. Anyway,” he continued with a grin in his voice, “You _have_ to read what she wrote in the school paper. The—the thing about mothers,”

“Hey, hey, hey! What are you doing?” Emma cut in, turning to yell back at them.

“Fine, fine!” he responded, before adding surreptitiously to Camille, “I’ll send it to you,”

Amid Emma’s continued protests, he shouted over his shoulder, “I’m doing nothing wrong! Just taking a pretty girl’s number!”

Emma stood unsteadily to point at them in a way she hoped was imposing. “Camille, I’m your boss! I forbid you to read that!”

“Okay!” Camille chirped, and immediately rattled off her phone number to Arnaud.

In a final fit of desperation, Emma clambered back up the slope, tackling Arnaud just as he pressed ‘send’. Tonio and Séby just stood by, laughing at the spectacle of Arnaud trying feebly to prevent Emma from wrestling his phone out of his hands.

By the time she let him up and wandered back over to the wreck, the afternoon light had shifted gently into the beginnings of a sunset, washing rich and golden over the otherwise untouchable little scene.

She fell forward heavily against the side of the boat that Camille leaned back on, startling her.

“Promise me you won’t read it?”

“Okay, okay!” Camille’s fond smile had returned, and she seemed to be holding back a laugh.

“I was young, everyone was ashamed of me. Want to be ashamed of me?” Emma continued imploringly. “In return, I’ll tell you some secrets, okay?”

Taking Camille’s raised eyebrows as a confirmation, she climbed over the back of the boat to perch on the thin edge, leaning in conspiratorially. She pointed at each member of the gang in turn where they now sat huddled in a circle on the ground.

“See that guy?” She indicated Séby. “He’s always been secretly in love with me. But he couldn’t admit it because that other one –” She pointed at Arnaud. “– was _officially_ in love with me. We were together. The little guy –” She finally settled on Tonio. “– had a… a _boundless_ admiration for me.” She spread her arms in an attempt to indicate exactly how boundless his admiration had been.

“Everyone loved you,” Camille summarised flatly, still grinning.

“Exactly!” She turned her finger triumphantly on Camille. For emphasis.

“But, that was before,” she sighed. “Although… Séby still looks pretty good. I’m sure that, somewhere, deep inside, there are still some little twitching particles thinking, ‘why not?’,”

Camille’s eyebrows had migrated steadily upwards as Emma spoke, listening with an amused smile as she leaned back against the threadbare planks.

“So you’re—bragging,”

Emma looked scandalised. “I’m confiding. You’re my confidante,”

“Ah, okay.” Camille nodded sagely.

A few minutes later, Emma found herself lying haphazardly down with the wreck poking into her side, and her head somehow in Camille’s lap.

The steadily cooling evening saw the rest of the gang trickle off one by one, each with their own fond smile. Aurore had grinned unabashedly, all her earlier timidity cast out to sea and forgotten.

“Say you’ll stay longer,” she’d said as she leaned over Camille and Emma where they remained on the boat.

Emma had opened a hazy eye, and replied, “I’m staying here _forever_ ,”

A chuckle had passed between Aurore and Camille, as Aurore laid her hand gently on Emma’s arm by way of farewell.

The greying dusk had truly settled in by the time Camille repeated the gesture and propped Emma up into a sitting position. It was a good thing she did; Emma had been only a few more minutes away from falling asleep right there.

“Come along, you,” Camille had murmured, more to herself than really to Emma, as she walked the two of them back to where she’d parked her car on the mainland.

The drive was, mercifully, much shorter than Emma’s walk had been that morning, and Camille was able to guide her, gently but insistently, toward the kitchen just as the night fell, black and heavy, on the woods surrounding the house. She stood behind Emma as she sat at the table, providing what she hoped was a comforting presence as Emma made her way slowly through the glass of water Camille had insisted on.

Despite Emma’s protests, she’d managed to find the light switches that hadn’t been turned on when they’d had dinner with Emma’s parents. Now that they were on, she could see why they’d been turned off before: the bright white of the tiles reflected strangely under the fluorescent bulb in the main light fixture, making it seem like there were no shadows in the room at all.

She had to admit, it was eerie, but she at least needed to see properly if she was to be doing it for the both of them.

While she waited for Emma to come down from the high of the afternoon, she checked her phone, finding the message that Arnaud had sent a few hours ago, complete with the promised attachment.  
With a peek over Emma’s shoulder to check on her progress, Camille grinned to herself, wondering what kind of embarrassing childhood not-so-secrets Arnaud had decided she needed to know about. As she read, though, her grin fell away, and a furrow formed between her eyebrows, deepening with every word:

_**Rabelais High School Paper, June.  
Emma Larsimon: The Burden of Having a Mother** _

_Our generation’s curse is dictated by our elders; mine lives in my mother’s head. For her, the meaning of life resides in the absence of questioning. The heart is big, but it drowns in an ocean of foolishness. We are painting here the portrait of an idiot who’d rather hide her stupidity behind smiles and stuffed tomatoes._

She pushed her glasses back up her nose, unsure what to think. She startled as Emma made an effort to push herself up from the chair.

“Okay,” Emma said decisively, already halfway to the door. “I’m… going to bed. Sleep it off,”

Camille nodded numbly, her phone still in her hands.

“Emma?” The question came before she’d even decided to speak.

Emma turned, leaning against the doorframe to regard her with those tired eyes. Camille looked like she was in mourning.

“Why did you write this? If my daughter wrote something like that, I—”

Emma cut her off with a sharp, hollow laugh. When she turned back to look at Camille, her eyes were glassy with the beginnings of tears.

“You said you wouldn’t read it! You’re a liar!” She was still grinning sardonically when she raised her hand to point at Camille with finality. “You are a liar,”

With that, she turned to leave, the acid shame crawling up her throat. Camille let her go, saying nothing from where she still stood at the far side of the kitchen.

Emma was numb as she climbed the stairs. It was only when she finally entered her bedroom that the tension wrapped around her spine flooded through her, releasing as she kicked the door closed. She sat for what felt like years on the too-small chair at her desk, her hands on her head, just short of ripping at her hair. The pressure in her head felt like it could squeeze her into nothingness.

She sat back and combed her hands back through her hair frantically, taking deep breaths as her mind wandered, over and over again, back to what Camille had read, no matter how hard she tried to stop it. She felt more alone than she could remember.

This, she thought, was exactly why she’d never come back and got in touch with anyone. It was better to let some parts of you die, otherwise no one would even come close to liking you. Instead, she’d gone and dug up the past, and now she didn’t know what to do with it.

She wondered, though, if Lizzie might know. It came to her, only now that she was desperate enough to let it, that she had the power to revive Lizzie. She always had; she’d just been denying it. Maybe it was time to dig that up too.

Her eyes lit on one of the drawers in her desk. She opened it like it might bite if she made her intentions known. Inside, right where she remembered leaving it, was an old abandoned diary of hers, half obscured by loose sheets of paper and stationery, haphazardly jammed in years ago.

She opened the book to a random blank page, frantically scribbling to find a pen that still worked. When she found one, she allowed herself to pause a moment, regarding the blank page opposite with a kind of morbid satisfaction.

Then, under the watchful eye of the lighthouse and with only her desk lamp for company, Emma began to write once more.

\--

_REBIRTH_

_One doesn’t come back to life. Not like this. The earth must scream. It must lose balance._

_But Harrow Bay had never liked balance. Its streets are Satan’s church, its woods a snake pit. Among them is Lilian._

_Lilian did what the night whispered for him to do. He took a child, the most vulnerable he could find. He took him, and led him down to the edge of the cresting waters, and he bade him continue until the waves enveloped him completely. Lilian offered his body, and his soul._

_So how could Marianne have resisted such a lovely invitation?_

_Lilian smiles; others can now endure his suffering and torment. The imbalance is here. The earth is screaming again._

_So, hidden away in her casket, Lizzie Larck opens one eye. She’s ready to do dead what she did alive: hunt down Marianne, again and again, come what may._

_Only then can the reunion take place._


	6. Of Rifts pt1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative chapter title: 'Emma _no_ '
> 
> For anyone who isn't familiar with the original show, content warnings for very uncomfortable/hurtful things being said by parents, followed by partly-alcohol-induced bad decisions (including some internalised misogyny on Emma's part). This also leads directly into the next chapter's aforementioned tension.
> 
> For anyone who _is_ familiar with the original show, very little is changed, so warning for canon-typical Emma.

Camille had slept fitfully in the armchair she’d chosen to camp out in, waking up several times during the night to adjust her position. She’d decided it was worth it, though; she didn’t think Emma would appreciate her presence in her room that night, whether or not that was where she’d left her things, and she usually slept well enough that one bad night wouldn’t kill her.

Now, though, she really did have to go up. Taking off her shoes and curling up in her day clothes might work for overnight, but she needed to change before she could get anything done today. And besides, she was worried. If it was possible, she needed to make amends.

With this in mind, she set off towards the kitchen, with the aim of bringing Emma a peace offering in the form of a cup of coffee.

Despite Camille’s hopes, Emma didn’t show up downstairs while she was waiting for the coffee to brew, and there was no answer when she knocked at the door. When she gave in and opened it, as little as she could, she found Emma passed out at her desk. The mid-morning light streamed in from the window behind her, just missing her to fall unceremoniously on an empty patch of floor. The desk lamp was still on, though, illuminating the edges of the notebook Emma’s crossed arms mostly covered from where she was lying on top of it.

“Emma?” Camille knocked on the doorframe again, a little louder this time.

A muffled groan emanated from the desk, and Emma shifted minutely. Camille took that as a confirmation to approach and present the coffee while it was still warm. The hearty _thunk_ of the cup against the desk seemed to rouse her more successfully.

Slowly, Camille spoke again. “How are you feeling?”

Emma finally raised her head, staring at her blankly.

“I’m fine,” she said, “Obviously,”

She combed a hand through her hair, turning away dazedly. It seemed to have lost the curl it had had since coming to Elden, returning to its position obediently as it always had in the city. Camille found it strange how much it disconcerted her; even though it had only been a few days, she’d gotten used to how it was here. It felt more… her.

Even more disconcerting, though, was how Emma refused to talk about yesterday. Camille could tell she remembered – she certainly had a grudge – but every time it was brought up, she looked right through Camille, as if really hearing her was too much hard work. The whole house seemed duller for it, like Emma had taken away its earlier character and vibrance as punishment.

After the first few attempts at conversation, Camille let things fall silent, and breakfast passed at an excruciating pace.

By the time Camille found herself getting ready to leave for the hospital, she held her head down, and was entirely wrapped up in her own thoughts. Chiefly, she was wondering if this was how Emma had felt under her father’s scrutiny the first night they arrived. If it was, she could see now why Emma called it “unbearable”.

She was so preoccupied by this, in fact, that she was halfway to the car before she raised her head, her furrowed brows raising in shock as she stopped dead.

“Emma!” she yelled over her shoulder, still not taking her eyes off the figure in front of her. She felt like if she so much as blinked it would disappear before she had the chance to confirm it. “Emma!”

“No need to scream, Camille, my head is killing me—”

Emma trailed off abruptly as she saw what Camille had called her for. Her mother, dazed and unmoving, stood away from the house, facing them head-on like she’d been waiting for them to discover her. Her hair was shot through with mud, and her clothes were torn; it looked like she’d been sleeping rough in the woods all day.

As Camille ran back up the stairs to find a blanket, she caught sight of a strange expression on Emma’s face. It was like dread and hope mixed into one, a kind of disgust just to the left of resignation.

Mrs Larsimon hadn’t moved when Camille ran back out, her eyes still staring straight ahead.

“Mum?” Emma said tentatively, torn between reaching out and keeping her distance. “Mum, can you see me?”

The moment the blanket was around her shoulders, Mrs Larsimon started off, wordlessly walking directly to the house, heedless of any obstacles in front of her. Camille and Emma exchanged a baffled look, before taking off belatedly after her, jogging slightly to catch up.

She was heading, it turned out, to the first room she could find that only had one door to it, shutting it and locking it without preamble.

“Mum, are you okay?” Emma tried the door. “Do you need anything?”

A muffled voice came from the other side of the door.

“Please, leave me alone,”

Emma frowned, glancing at Camille where she leaned over her shoulder.

“Go get a screwdriver,” she whispered urgently, still pulling at the door.

“What?”

“A screwdriver, a knife, whatever,”

Camille pursed her lips. Apparently now that Emma was mad at her she was demoted back to ‘errand girl’. Nonetheless, she dug around for a second in her coat inner pocket for her switchblade, ejecting the blade as she held it out to Emma.

Emma took it without even looking at her, though she did have the decency to appear surprised at having a knife shoved in her face.

Several minutes of digging at the crack between the door and its frame yielded nothing, though, even with the added tool. She gave up, spreading her hands and staring indignantly at the door.

“Mum, let me open the door!”

Again came the toneless, muffled voice.

“No. I don’t want to,”

Emma froze, not sure what to do next. After a second, she turned back to Camille.

Camille saw her opportunity. “Let me try,”

“She’s my mum, I know how to deal—”

Camille rolled her eyes and shouldered past her to stand by the door, ignoring Emma’s protests.

“Mrs Larsimon?” she began tentatively. “Please let us open the door,”

No response. Better than refusal, at least.

“Please try to understand, we’re very worried. We just want to make sure you’re okay,”

She waited a few seconds.

Finally, a response.

“Is my daughter still there?”

“… Yes?”

Mrs Larsimon paused.

“Do you have children, CamCam?”

Camille recoiled a little from the unexpectedness of the question. She hoped she was wrong about where this conversation was going.

“No,”

“No, of course, you’re much too young…” she trailed off for a moment. “You know, the love everyone talks about, the love of a mother for her child. Unconditional, unbreakable. Well, my daughter… she has managed to put a dent in it,”

Camille hung her head, an ache in her chest. She was ashamed that she knew what Mrs Larsimon was talking about.

“Not all at once,” she continued, “But over time, it’s just… worn away. She has a talent. A talent to find the worst in everything, tarnish anything beautiful,”

She paused once more.

“Now when I look at her, it’s just… numb. Like static wherever she goes. I pretend, but… I don’t think it’ll ever be like it was,”

“Mum…” Camille was startled by the quiet voice behind her. She’d never heard Emma sound like that before. “Mum, I’m sorry, I—”

“I don’t want to hear you say you’re sorry. Not anymore. Just leave me alone,”

Camille turned back to Emma. She looked like she was swallowing back the beginnings of tears.

“Emma—”

“It’s fine,” Emma cut in. “I’ll leave you two alone,”

With that she left abruptly, refusing to look at Camille or even at the door as she passed them.

Camille waited a moment, wincing a little at the sound of the front door closing, just gently enough not to be a slam.

“… Mrs Larsimon? Can we talk?” She paused. “We’re alone now, I promise,”

Slowly, a light click gave way to a gap in the door, and Mrs Larsimon’s gaunt face. Her pale blue eyes stared out, both alert and dazed, as if she was seeing things she had lived her whole life thus far not knowing they were there to be seen. She leaned against the doorframe, not heavily, but seemingly as a precaution. She looked more present than she’d been when they’d found her, though; she seemed to be slowly coming back to herself.

“Camille,” she sighed, tension oozing out of her as her face slowly relaxed. She brought a hand up to massage her temple. “Goodness. I’m sorry to have put you in this position,”

Camille cocked her head to one side, still frowning. “Mrs Larsimon, are you okay? Should I drive you to the hospital?”

Mrs Larsimon took a moment to answer. “No… no, that’s okay.”

“Are you sure? You’ve been missing for a full day and you’re acting like you have a concussion. I—”

“I’m fine, CamCam. I’m not in any pain.” She smiled. “I promise,”

Camille adjusted her glasses. She _did_ look better already; she was starting to look at Camille rather than through her.

“Can you… tell me where you’ve been? Where your husband is?”

She thought a moment. “I’m not sure. I don’t remember anything specific. Just the sea… and then waking up in the woods and walking back home.” She paused. “I don’t know where my husband is. I know we were together. And now I’m back without him,”

Camille hummed thoughtfully. “Do you need anything?”

“I think,” Mrs Larsimon laughed a little as she looked down at herself. “What I need first is to take a shower. I think it’ll clear my head,”

“If you like, I can make you some tea for when you get out?”

“That would be lovely,”

\--

After making sure that Mrs Larsimon really was okay, and wasn’t immediately about to fall unconscious, Camille absented herself to find Emma. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be wanted, but who knew what Emma would get up to on her own after a conversation like that? Maybe she’d be needed nonetheless.

She was still processing what Emma’s mother had said as she stepped out the door. She could certainly understand where it had come from; she’d felt her own dent in her affection for Emma forming as she read what Emma had written all those years ago. It had made her nervous, the idea that she’d never known Emma as well has she thought she did.

The worst thing was that Emma hadn’t explained it. If she’d been able to say she was a different person when she’d written it… maybe it wouldn’t feel like such a betrayal now.

By all rights, Mrs Larsimon had every reason to feel the way she did. What Emma had written may have been true on some level, but it was twisted and cruel. It was an attack, meant only to hurt. She could _feel_ the arrogance and malice radiating from her phone as she’d read it.

But despite it all, she had to put trust in what she had seen of Emma. There might have been more to her than she’d let on, but the person Camille knew had to be a part of that. What Emma had _chosen_ to show her, that had to be real too. And seeing how that person had reacted to what her mother said was heart-breaking.

She’d seen something of Emma deaden as she’d left, like this was… exactly what she’d been fearing for those fifteen years. Maybe even longer. Maybe, Camille thought with a mournful ache, that’s why she’d written it to begin with.

Camille honestly couldn’t imagine her own mother talking to her that way. As far as she knew, there’d never been anything left unsaid between them, or between her and her father for that matter. She tried to do her best for them, and she knew she could trust the same from them. That was enough.

The idea that a parent’s love for their child could be shaken like that… mortified her on an existential level.

Her unsettlement at the idea that she might not know Emma as well as she thought, however, came to the forefront at the realisation that she had no idea where to look for her. She’d tried the wreck – obviously – but it seemed unlikely after yesterday that she’d go back there. It wasn’t _hers_ any more, it was communal, and Emma didn’t seem in a very communal mood. It didn’t really matter whether any one else was actually there, just the suggestion they might be seemed enough to dissuade her.

Along the same lines, she’d, without much hope, tried the hospital. Her doubts were confirmed when Caro told her she hadn’t talked to Emma since yesterday.

“I don’t know where else she might be,” she’d said apologetically. “I’d help you look, but we wouldn’t be able to split up,”

One last dim flash of inspiration (which she put just as much stock in as the last attempts) led her on her way back to the pier the two of them had paused at when they’d first arrived. Maybe she’d chosen to walk down it then because it meant something to her.

An unexpected success came of this last excursion, though: a flash of a red hoodie betrayed Emma’s position on the docks a short walk from the pier. Her legs dangled over the edge, not carefree like yesterday, but as leaden as the rest of her posture. Camille’s heart sank at the glimmer of the shot glasses that were, for the moment, Emma’s only company.

In fact, the only thing that seemed remotely inviting about her was the lack of hesitation with which she answered her buzzing phone as Camille approached.

“Hm?” She listened a moment. “Great! We’re on our way,”

As quickly as she’d answered, she hung up, more efficient and business-like than Camille remembered seeing from her before.

“Where are we going?” Obviously Emma knew she was there. It startled her to have been included so readily in whatever plans had just been made, but she found herself tentatively hopeful.

Emma squinted out at the sea through the wind. The reddish-brown circles around her eyes hadn’t gone anywhere since she left the house, and seemed darker for the overcast dimness of the early afternoon.

She made a show of finishing her drink before she spoke.

“That was Séby,” she said, clearly trying to pretend Camille hadn’t spoken first. “He’s inviting us over for dinner,”

Camille raised her eyebrows incredulously. “Sure, perfect timing,”

“And why the hell not, huh?” Emma turned, finally facing Camille as she raised her voice. Camille recoiled slightly from the force of it, before settling into a deep frown. “My dad’s missing, my mum hates me! What am I supposed to do?”

She turned back to the sea as she continued. “I need to be _comforted_. I’m going to have Séby, and it’s going to be great. A bit of old-fashioned sex,”

“Emma, _no_. He is very married,”

“Perfect! Time to test his marriage,”

The apprehension that had swam around Camille’s head while she was searching for Emma gave way to unrestrained disgust, and not an insignificant amount of panic that this was the person she’d apparently been tasked with babysitting this evening. Her mind ran away with all the possibilities of things that could go wrong.

Emma turned back to her again, oblivious.

“D’you have a piece of gum?”

\--

Camille was experiencing… regret.

It wasn’t a feeling she was used to. At least, not like this. Not in the way that made her question at what point in her many adult years she’d made the choice that had set her down this path of life, and try to figure out if she should have seen this coming.

She’d been going back and forth on that one all through the walk to the car, and the drive to Séby’s house. Any attempts at conversation Emma tried to make while she was in this state made Camille feel like she must have missed something obvious, like Emma _had_ to have always been this petty and insufferable. But in the lapses between conversations, she had ample time to replay and replay their time together, and all she could find was hints of doubts. Nothing that would have suggested _this_.

 _This_ , she was pretty sure, went above and beyond being mad at Camille, no matter how much she deserved it. _This_ , as far as she could tell, was a resounding apathy bordering on viciousness, for anyone and everyone she cared to think of.

Emma, for her part, seemed still entirely oblivious to Camille’s discomfort, and even more oblivious to her serious reconsideration of whether she was in the right line of work. She seemed downright spritely.

By the time the two of them approached the neatly kept front lawn that Emma insisted was Séby’s, Camille had given up even trying to school her face into anything other than flat exhaustion, and a fair amount of frustration. She imagined the contrast between the two of them would make a comical picture for whichever poor soul opened the door to greet them.

Emma took the honour of pressing on the doorbell, hastily removing the gum she’d been discreetly chewing the whole drive over and tossing it over her shoulder into the grass, just as the door swung inwards enthusiastically to reveal someone who must have been Séby’s wife.

“Ah, there you are! Good evening. I’m Sophie.”

The light spilling out onto the lawn that was, by now, covered by autumn’s early dusk, was as radiant as her smile, and seemed just as unsure of itself. It was a colourless, neutral tone meant not to offend, and seemed reluctant to venture any farther than it had already settled, just at Emma and Camille’s feet.

Camille offered her own polite smile in response, though she felt it whole-heartedly. No matter how present her earlier panic still was, it was a relief to be around someone who was at least going through the motions of caring about other people.

“You have short hair,” offered Emma unhelpfully, gesturing vaguely.

Ah yes, there was that panic again.

Sophie’s smile faltered, eyebrows raising almost imperceptibly as she hesitated. “… I do,”

“So do I.” As if that explained it. Unfortunately, it did for Camille. She sent a pointed glance at Emma, hoping she’d refrain from digging herself into this hole at least this early in the evening.

Emma didn’t seem to notice.

“Okay,” Sophie said brightly, her smile now barely hiding her confusion. Camille wondered if she might have a companion in her frustrations.

She decided to cut in. “Hi, I’m Camille. I work with Emma,”

“She’s my assistant.” A hint of smugness had worked its way into Emma’s voice.

“Delighted!” Sophie shook her hand gratefully. “Come on in, I’ll go and get Sebastien,” she said as she turned and disappeared hastily deeper indoors. True to her word, a muffled call reached Emma and Camille through the open door.

“‘ _Sebastien_ ’?” Emma echoed with a slight sneer.

Camille decided not to acknowledge that, and instead gave her a gentle push towards the door.

Apparently her hopes that that would be an uncontroversial move were unfounded; Emma resisted vehemently.

“No, I’m not going in. I don’t know this fat cow.” She raised her arms in a shrug as if it couldn’t be helped.

“Emma, _no_. She’s pregnant!”

“I’ve seen pregnant women less fat than this,” she whispered conspiratorially.

Camille gave her a disbelieving look. “Emma, _you_ wanted to come, you have to go in!”

Mercifully, Séby chose that moment to appear in the doorway with Sophie reluctantly, but dutifully, in tow, along with a young boy who stood between them.

“Hey, I’m glad you guys could make it!” He really did seem like it, too. Camille hoped it would stay that way. “You’ve met Sophie, and this is Hugo,”

Camille tensed instinctively as Emma spoke. “Hugo?”

“He’s my son,” Sophie explained.

“ _Another_ one?”

“Yes, he’s from my first marriage.” she said as she turned to her son with a protective arm around his shoulders. Her smile was still resolutely, _aggressively_ , in place, as if she was, at this point, willing politeness to be somehow contagious. “He’s a big fan of yours! Aren’t you, Hugo?”

Hugo wordlessly held out a thick paperback and a pen, beaming. On the front, naturally, Emma’s name was printed in red at the top, and underneath, in much larger letters, the title of the book: “LIZZIE LARCK”.


	7. Of Rifts pt2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As said in previous author's notes, this is The chapter in which I hew most closely to the tone of the original show, which means, in addition to more of the previous chapter's warnings about Emma (which also carry through here), there is also a scene in which a child puts himself in potentially very serious danger, and implicitly was coerced into it. He will be fine, but if you don't want to read that, it's deliberately meant to mirror the in-universe writing at the end of ch5, so you can go back and look at that for a tl;dr.
> 
> Other warnings are, as I said, Emma continues to be very dysfunctional (see ch6 notes) and attempts to be manipulative, and she and Camille have an argument that causes Camille to leave.
> 
> After this chapter, it'll get lighter again, so feel free to skip this one if that's not what you want out of this story.

Emma had taken Hugo’s implicit, though very enthusiastic, invitation with gusto, and now sat across from Camille, facing away from the table, balancing the open book on her crossed legs. Camille couldn’t see from where she was sat what Emma was writing, and hoped vehemently, against all hope, that it was as generic and harmless as it used to be.

She found herself, by now, rather torn. Should she keep chastising Emma in the interest of not ruining Séby and his family’s night? Or should she wash her hands of it? She knew any interjection on her part wasn’t likely to stop Emma from doing whatever she wanted… and she knew that it wasn’t her responsibility. This was definitely not in her job description.

On the other hand, the others didn’t deserve this. Especially not little Hugo.

She’d settled, for now, on keeping an eye on Emma surreptitiously from across the table, under the pretence of checking her phone. That would probably do, at least while Séby and Sophie were out of the room.

At the satisfying click of a pen lid returning home and the smack of a closing book cover, though, she raised her head slightly. Just in case.

As Hugo went to collect his book, Emma held it back slightly and leaned in.

“Do you like Séby?”

He responded without hesitation. “Yes, he’s great!” Camille wondered if he was used to that question by now.

Emma leaned in a little closer. “Yeah, but he replaced your dad,”

“My dad’s a jerk who left us. I like Séby better.” He said it with a small smile that warmed Camille’s heart. To his credit, he seemed wholly unphased by Emma’s questioning, and he was absolutely old enough to understand what she was trying to do.

He thanked her and hugged her, before racing off, presumably to show off his new note to his parents.

When the two of them came out and sat down to dinner with them, Emma remained mercifully quiet, her now one-track mind apparently entirely focused on the food. To Camille, that seemed like it might almost be a compliment. She wondered if the evening wasn’t going to be as bad as she’d been expecting.

After dinner, though, Emma reached for the bottle of red wine in the centre of the table.

“It’s fine, it’s just wine,” she told Camille’s disapproving expression, as if she was exasperated. Camille’s expression did not change at all as she poured liberally, seeming, once again, completely heedless of the world around her. Sophie rolled her eyes.

Emma leaned towards her nonetheless, folding herself diagonally over the table and gesturing lightly with her wine glass.

“So, how far along are you?”

Sophie smiled gently at that. “Just a week to go. I’m almost full-term,”

She glanced across the table at Séby, who matched her smile with that radiant grin of his.

Emma pointed vaguely in his direction. “And is it his?”

Camille suppressed a groan. Séby’s smile died instantly.

“Yes, obviously,”

“Nothing’s obvious. This little guy wasn’t his.” She jabbed her thumb behind herself. “Séby could have come after the fight again, get _all_ of the problems and _none_ of the benefits—”

“We’ve been together four years,” Séby cut in.

“Four years, wow!” Camille couldn’t decide whether that was meant to sound sarcastic or not.

“You know,” Sophie said suddenly, a more calculating look in her eye. “We were at school together,”

Emma leaned back to finish her wine. “Really? I don’t recall,”

“I was two years ahead of you.” She huffed a laugh. “I read your article about mothers,”

She laid a hand pointedly on her own stomach. Camille pursed her lips and took a deep breath, looking down at the table. She gave another laugh, fixing that relentlessly polite smile back on her face before she continued.

“I thought, ‘wow, fifteen years old and she already wants to destroy everything!’” Her eyes lowered pointedly to the glass in Emma’s unsteady hand. “I had to wonder where you’d end up, with an attitude like that,”

She let the words hang uncomfortably for a moment, before turning back to her husband, her voice gentler.

“I’ll get dessert,”

“I’ll be right there,” he called as she stood, and left.

He turned back to Emma, face hard. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting to know her!” Again that exasperation, like she had no idea what was wrong.

He just shook his head, and got up without another word.

Emma turned to Camille with exaggerated bafflement, as if she expected her to agree. She didn’t seem to notice Camille’s stony face.

She made another grab for the wine bottle. Camille quickly pulled it out of her reach, holding it close to her chest.

“ _No_. Stop,”

“Why ‘stop’?”

Camille sent an imploring look across the table. “I’m embarrassed,”

“You’ve seen worse.” Emma reached out her glass. “Can I get a refill, _please_?”

Camille put down the bottle gently by Sophie’s plate, far out of Emma’s reach. “No,”

“That’s smart. You know I can get up, right?”

“I know,”

“Then I will,”

“Go ahead,”

True to her word, she got up, lifting herself with both hands on the table as though she weighed three times as much as usual. She walked around the table with a swagger, taking her time before she set herself down decisively next to Camille.

She poured herself another glass with the same kind of leisurely manner, and took a pointed sip.

“Want some?”

\--

When Séby came back into the main room, Camille’s first thought was that, at least now she wouldn’t have to wrangle Emma on her own. Her second thought was that actually maybe he should stay away in case Emma decided to follow through on her plan to seduce him. Camille had no doubt it would be unsuccessful, but she didn’t want their friendship to have to take a blow like that. Séby didn’t deserve that, even if Emma did.

It took her a moment, then, to notice his expression: the kind of light concern that was rapidly evolving into nauseating dread.

“Have you two seen Hugo?” He seemed slightly out of breath. “Camille?”

She startled a little at being the one he addressed first. “No, I—I haven’t seen him since before dinner. What’s wrong?”

Sounds of Sophie’s search upstairs reached them through the ceiling, getting louder and more frantic as the seconds wore on.

Emma, still in Sophie’s seat, said nothing. Her face was frozen in a kind of panic that she seemed too tired to access, like her mind was as fogged up as the windows now were.

“We can’t find him.” Séby looked desperate.

“He’s—he’s not in the house?”

He just shook his head.

\--

Only a few minutes later, Emma found herself half-sitting, half-lying in the back of Camille’s car. A glance between Camille and Séby seemed all the two of them had needed to come to a mutual understanding: first, Hugo simply wasn’t in the house anymore; second, someone needed to go looking for him; and third, Séby was in no state to be driving.

So it fell to Camille. Like everything else.

Emma drifted along behind the two of them, feeling like she was being pulled forward and into the car by a piece of string affixed to her hollow chest. It was a strange sensation; the compulsion came from what she knew from experience to be a sense of responsibility, maybe even some kind of guilt, misplaced or otherwise, but it was like the weight of her emotions had broken a hole in the bottom of her, and they’d all leaked out, leaving her empty.

Still she lay there as Camille gripped the wheel, breathing carefully evenly, and checking all the places Séby could come up with.

The fog in her mind felt like it had bled out from her, permeating the entirety of the backseat, casting a permanent shadow over her. The flashes of streetlamps wheeling past the window did nothing to illuminate her pallid, grey face, the orange glow instead falling steadily through the front windscreen onto Camille’s tight features. The only light that Emma felt reaching her was the intermittent jabs from the lighthouse, white and judging.

She leaned forward heavily, hoping that if she got as close as she could to the front seats, maybe she’d be free of that piercing white light that hurt her eyes.

“What the hell… what the hell,” Séby was muttering, half to himself, half to Camille and Emma, shaking his head in terrified bewilderment. “He’s such a good kid, he would never leave like this!”

Abruptly, he turned to Emma, seeming to notice her for the first time since they’d left his house.

“What did you say to him? What did you do?”

She frowned. “Nothing. What could I _possibly_ say to make this happen?”

Séby gave her a hard look. “Is your seatbelt on?” is all he said before he turned away again.

She sighed inwardly, resigning herself back to the backseat. She tugged at the seatbelt insistently as it resisted her, finally pulling it across herself absently. It slipped from her mind completely as she leaned despondently against the window, far too tired to think but far too overwhelmed to sleep.

“What is going _on_ today?” Séby continued in the front. “Ever since this morning something’s felt off. No one’s quite… right,”

Camille breathed a weary sigh. “I know what you mean…”

Emma didn’t. As far as she was concerned, everything had gone wrong the moment they came back to Elden. _That_ was when things went “off”.

Now she sat and thought about it, she realised it must have been Marianne’s doing entirely, bringing her here. She’d never put it together before. But if she’d been impersonating Mrs Daugeron when she’d called… and _then_ she’d taken her parents the other night… this morning was the first time something seemed to go _right_. At least until her mother said she wanted nothing to do with Emma.

But she _had_ returned. Emma had figured it out, all she had to do was write and Marianne would leave well enough alone. Except…

What she’d written came back to her in a sickening lurch. Something about a boy… and _how could Marianne have resisted such a lovely invitation?_ What else… _cresting waters_ , wasn’t it?

Her eyes widened, and through the fog still saturating the back of the car, she called out.

“The sea! Quick, we have to check the beach!”

Camille did a double-take, clearly baffled at her outburst. Thankfully, however, she also clearly wasn’t going to question a potential lead, and turned the car back towards the coastline.

It wasn’t far.

Sure enough, through the dark, a flash of yellow was just visible from the road as the small figure walked onwards, seemingly not noticing as he took his first steps into the shallows.

Séby was the first to react, opening the door before he was even fully free of his seatbelt, racing down the slope and calling for his son.

Camille followed almost immediately, dashing after him.

Emma sat up blearily, only just registering that the car had stopped. Through the window she’d been leaning against, she saw the ensuing struggle. Apparently Hugo was still under the influence of… whoever had made him try to walk into the sea; he was kicking wildly, still trying to walk forwards despite Séby bodily pulling him off the ground.

Séby’s knees kept threatening to buckle even as Camille reached him, trying to take some of the load and help pull him back to up to the car.

“Emma!” he called back desperately over his shoulder as his son slipped in his arms.

She knew she should help. She knew she should already be down there helping. But the more she tugged and fumbled for the button on the seatbelt, the more it seemed to slip from her grasp, her gaze pinballing wildly between the scene outside and her own hip. She was trapped.

As she watched, Hugo seemed to go limp, the energy draining from him as he was pulled far enough from the sea that the hold over him seemed to dissipate.

Only then did she find the catch on her seatbelt.

She staggered out of the car, coming to a stop as she saw the iciness with which Camille and Séby avoided her gaze.

\--

Hugo, for his part, was impervious to questioning; he passed out the moment he reached the car. Emma could tell words were going to be had once he was safely home, and he would be very closely watched for a while to make sure nothing like this happened again. Emma didn’t think it would.

The drive passed in sharp, jagged silence. In the end, they weren’t that far from Séby’s house, but even so, it felt like miles under the weight of the tension. Worse still, Séby and Hugo had taken the backseat, so Emma was left exposed in the front seat next to a rigid, wooden Camille.

When they reached his house, he simply got out, still holding tightly onto his son. He took a moment to whisper a quiet, heartfelt “thank you” to Camille before he left, still without looking at Emma once.

The drive back to Emma’s parents’ house was similar, though Emma found it much worse. Without even the slowly easing urgency of Hugo in the backseat, the tension rested entirely on the front of the car, so that she thought something would snap and whip backwards into her skin if she so much as moved a muscle. So she stared out the front of the car, finally bathed in that sickly orange glow, and with the lighthouse watching more intently than ever, waiting for permission to say her piece.

When the car slowed to a stop, though, Camille still didn’t move. She just turned off the car, and sat with her head slightly bowed, staring unseeing into the dashboard as though it had just presented her with some horrible tragedy.

Emma slowly and deliberately reached down and removed her seatbelt. Naturally, this time it came away easily. Of course.

That was one good thing about being in the front seat, though: the fog was less dense in this part of the car, and she could slowly, slowly feel her head beginning to clear.

That had its own problems, though: now she wasn’t empty. She _felt_ her guilt full-force, and she _felt_ Camille’s anger and sadness, and she would have done anything to get out of it.

Camille still hadn’t moved.

“You’re not getting out?” she tried quietly.

“No,”

Emma took a deep breath.

“I really fucked up tonight, I know. I’m not exactly… feeling good about it.”

Camille’s voice was flat. “I’m done. I’m leaving,”

“CamCam—”

“ _Stop_ calling me ‘CamCam’!” She finally turned to face Emma. She looked devastated, but her eyes were dry and clear. “I can’t make excuses for you anymore. Get out,”

Emma’s brow furrowed, halfway between sadness and confusion.

“Okay.” Her voice was still quiet, barely audible even to her.

As she reached down the handle of the door, she continued, her mouth forming the words before she’d even decided to speak.

“I’m not perfect, I know… that’s why I need you.” She gestured vaguely, door already forgotten. “You’re my little green man. You know… Jiminy Cricket…” She grinned half-heartedly.

Camille said nothing.

“You’re my friend, Camille.” Her eyes misted a little as she said it. “And I need a friend right now,”

Camille turned to face her, her head no longer bowed. As she looked Emma in the eye, Emma could see her eyes starting to well up behind her glasses too, and she took a moment to revel in the inescapable evidence that Camille _cared_.

What she said, though, was frank and unambiguous.

“You’re toxic, Emma. And you’re poisoning me with it, too.” She turned away again, staring blankly out of the dark windshield. “Get out, I have to leave,”

Emma turned to face Camille. She wasn’t sure when she’d slumped down in her seat, but it made Camille’s rigid, straight spine seem all the more forbidding by comparison. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being ganged up on, even just by one person.

“What’s going on here isn’t my fault.” She couldn’t quite find the energy to sound properly annoyed.

Camille laughed wryly. When she spoke, though, it came out frantic, panicked.

“I don’t know what’s happening in this town, all these… _unnatural_ things, but I have _nothing_ to do with it. I don’t want to _be_ here with you, get out!”

When Emma didn’t react, she gave a shove. “Get _out_!”

Emma relented, opening the door and stepping out because it seemed there was nothing else to do.

She took a few half-hearted, dragging steps in the direction of her parents’ house, before stopping. There was no sound of the engine behind her.

A surge of desperate hope gave her an unexpected burst of energy, and she turned, practically throwing herself back through the car door, her legs still dangling out as she spoke quickly.

“See? You haven’t left! Why are you here?” She fumbled around her pockets with unsteady urgency. “You’re here for work, right? I can call Rachelle right now, and you’ll be my agent, okay?”

As soon as she said it, she knew it was the wrong move. Another hollow grin found Camille’s face as she turned away, like Emma had just confirmed what she’d been thinking about her all this time. Like she couldn’t even bare to look at her any more.

One last try.

“Camille, you’re my friend. You’re the only one I can count on. And horrible things are happening to me.” She steeled herself, looking down before her gaze fell on Camille again. “How do you think I knew about tonight?”

Camille didn’t move, but Emma could tell she’d caught her attention.

“I knew because I’m the one who wrote it. What I write comes true, you _have_ to believe me.” Her voice was quiet and pleading. “I don’t know what to do,”

Camille took a deep breath before she faced Emma, slowly and deliberately. Her eyes were still moist with the beginnings of tears.

“Get help from someone who can. I can’t. Close the door,”

Emma felt the words like a punch in the gut, standing slowly, if only to recoil. Now, as she stood by the car, still looking on, the engine stirred to life. There was no hesitation in its movements.

In the darkness, the taillights were blinding as she stared after it.

And just like that, she was alone. More alone than she’d been when she’d written for Marianne last night, more alone than when she’d forced Camille to sleep downstairs. She really had no one left.

No one at all.

She stood for several moments, out there in the misty dark, with nothing to look at and nothing to hold on to. Everything was just… black. Only now did the fog in her mind start to lift, and the realisation of what had just happened, the finality of it, hit her in a wave of nausea.

Once again, she walked like she was being pulled along, dragging herself inside. Her tired, tired eyes fell on the form of her mother, who lay napping on the couch.

She sighed inwardly, before sitting herself down on the floor by her mother’s hand where it fell out from under the blanket. The moment her head hit the edge of the cushion, the exhaustion took her, and she remembered nothing else from that night.


	8. Of Healing (Attempted or Otherwise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the part where I start to properly diverge from the show, and most of the remaining chapters will be some variation on 'Emma learns to communicate effectively and actually tries to have real conversations for once', because this _is_ a fix-it, after all. There is a some (again canon-typical) violence in this chapter pertaining to the attempted exorcism, but again, nothing with lasting consequences, and tonally it's not as heavy as the last chapter.
> 
> The vibe of this one is very much 'Emma, _no_ (affectionate)'

Camille drove for a long time. She knew it had to be a long time; she could have sworn it was hours yet until dawn when she left, but the sky was just turning light, what felt like minutes after she’d left Elden. She supposed it wasn’t that surprising, though. The roads out of that place were all long and straight, and she knew she was running on autopilot. In a way, she was more surprised she came back to herself at all before she arrived back home.

She did, though. The composure she’d managed to maintain while she was leaving Emma crumbled at just a few short-lived attempts to listen to the radio. Apparently any kind of music was too emotionally charged for her right now. It all seemed to fill her with a kind of grief, like she knew instinctively that it would never live up to what she’d now lost.

Despite herself, she felt her face tighten and warp as the tears started to gather in her eyes.

It wasn’t even the ending that got to her. It was the fact that she’d chosen it. That she’d _had_ to. That, no matter what, she probably was always going to, one way or another.

It made everything she and Emma had been slowly and tentatively building over the last six months feel pointless. Or like… they hadn’t been building anything at all, and she was just the idiot who didn’t notice.

Certainly, Emma’s attempts to manipulate her brought that feeling, at dizzying levels of intensity. She had to wonder at times like those whether they had ever been friends. No matter how many times Emma said they were, every new insistence just drove home the feeling that she was nothing more than a tool to Emma.

Finally, she conceded and pulled over. There was no point driving into a ditch because she couldn’t see through her tears.

By now, the sky was a dingy grey, the kind of pale that nonetheless felt dim. It had a flatness to it that seemed indistinguishable from the night that had just left, and as Camille looked around, first inland at the close crowd of trees, and then out at the wide expanse of sea, she couldn’t help but see it all as empty props, or a painted scene. None of it had any character to it any more.

She found herself reaching for her phone absent-mindedly. This was a state of mind she thought she probably shouldn’t be alone for.

Despite how early it was, her mother picked up almost immediately, and didn’t even sound like she’d just woken up. She waited patiently as Camille explained to her what had happened.

Finally, she just gave a deep sigh. “You were right,”

“I was right,” Camille confirmed, though it felt wrenching to admit it.

“You did what you could, Camille.” Her mother’s voice was gentle, but firm.

“Right, but she’s completely unstable!” Camille found herself starting to gesture wildly. “I tried to help, and she just tried to manipulate me! I can’t help her anymore,”

“You have to take care of yourself,”

Camille nodded mutely, though she knew her mother couldn’t see her.

“Are you driving?”

She startled a little at the change of topic. “Yes, I’m coming home. But I’m pulled over at the moment,”

“You said this happened last night. You’ve been driving all that time?”

Camille hummed her confirmation.

“Well, if you’re tired, get some sleep, okay?” She paused for Camille to agree before she continued. “I’ll let your father know you’re coming. I’ll let you get some rest for now, but if you want to talk some more before you get back, I’ll be home all day,”

“Right.” Camille felt the tension drain from her at the confirmation. Her mother was right; she was exhausted.

She could hear a smile enter her mother’s voice when she spoke again. “See you soon, Camille. I love you,”

“I love you too, mum,”

\--

Emma woke slowly to the gentle sensation of someone playing with her hair. It was something she hadn’t felt in years. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it.

Especially right now, it felt like a welcome relief from the dregs of last night. As far as she could tell, the sleep hadn’t fixed a single thing, and she found herself aching lightly all over, whether from the night sleeping sat up on the floor or from the stress of losing her friend, she couldn’t tell. All she knew was that now she also had a familiar pounding headache to complement it.

Even her eyelids felt tight and uncomfortable as she slowly opened her eyes to find her mother gently smiling down at her. It was such a serene, loving expression that it felt entirely alien to her in that moment. She looked healthy enough, now she was clean. Mostly just tired.

Emma’s only response was the involuntary tears that came to her eyes. At this stage, she thought, it felt more like that was her natural state, and everything else was just a short break. It was getting tiring.

“Mum?” Her mother’s smile melted into a look of concern. “Do you remember anything?”

She took a deep breath, and spoke slowly. “Your father is missing, I remember that. I remember Camille. I remember walking back through the woods before I got home.”

Emma found she couldn’t meet her eyes when she spoke again. “Do you remember what we talked about? What you told me?”

Mrs Larsimon nodded. “Very well. It was like… I couldn’t control it. It just came out, and out, and out… it felt good to finally say it,”

“I’m sorry.” She could barely even hear herself. “I know I’m not an easy person… I’m sorry,”

She had no idea what kind of reaction she was expecting from her mother, but the gentle hand at her chin prompting her to raise her gaze again wasn’t it. And neither was the fond, _sincere_ smile that etched itself deeply into her mother’s still-tired face.

“Emma… You really put me through the wringer.” Her eyes held a quiet intensity as she looked down at Emma. “But I wouldn’t change a _thing_. You’re my little girl!”

She smiled again. “We still have so much time to spend together,”

Emma nodded mutely, averting her eyes once more, this time allowing herself to lean into her mother’s light touches.

It seemed strange to say, but she’d never considered that her mother would still _want_ to spend time with her, especially after what she’d done. She’d certainly never thought that maybe her attempts to keep her distance from her mother, from Elden, was making worse all the bad blood she’d felt was between them.

Or, she thought, maybe she _did_ know it was making it worse, and she’d just decided she didn’t care. That it was bad enough anyway, already unfixable, so what was one more nail in the coffin? She hadn’t allowed herself to see this part of her life as anything other than dead, so what would have been the point is trying to resurrect it?

She’d resurrected Lizzie, though. She’d proven it was possible. And Marianne had given her mother back… and somehow it was only now that she found herself wishing she understood her better.

But maybe that was her answer. Maybe she knew something she didn’t know she knew, and that’s what had come out as Lizzie. _Maybe_ … there was some way to stop Marianne from doing something like this ever again.

She couldn’t write, she knew that now. Last night had been perfectly sufficient to show her that; it had just made Marianne more powerful.

But maybe something she’d _already_ written couldn’t be used against her.

In her mounting excitement, she leapt up from the floor, hunching again suddenly as her knees protested the sudden movement. She made her lopsided way as quickly as she could to the bookshelf across the room from the couch.

“Emma…?” Her mother’s voice reached her distantly as her thoughts thrummed around her head. For what felt like the first time since she’d come to Elden, her eyes and her mind felt clear.

She picked up one of the copies of Lizzie Larck at random, not even sure what she was looking for, until her eyes fell upon a familiar line of dialogue.

_Lizzie comes closer to him._

_“I exorcise you, foul spirit. Dare no longer to deceive mankind,” she says._

“Mum,” she heard herself saying as her eyes continued to scan the page. Her heart beat wildly at the sight. “Would you mind if I leave you for a while? I have to do something,”

“What are you going to do?”

Finally, she lifted her gaze to her mother, her eyes bright and hopeful and curious.

She gave a vague shrug as she answered.

“Something,”

Obviously.

\--

She’d taken the book with her when she went to the church. Not for any real reason other than that she’d been holding it and she was determined to set off before doing _literally anything else_ , but she found herself grateful for it when she got there.

She had to take a few moments to read on from the passage she’d found at home, scouring more carefully to find some indication of exactly _how_ Lizzie apparently had gone about exorcising Marianne from her father.

Finally, here it was:

_Slowly, she pours the holy water over the top of her father’s head. The water flows down his face, leaving angry red burn marks._

And:

_Lizzie takes the cross in her left hand. In spite of screams and whistles, she presses the cross to the burning forehead._

_She screams: “Be torn and chased from God’s church; you don’t belong here!”_

It was a simple enough matter to walk in and take what she needed. She couldn’t be sure where the priest was, but he seemed for now mercifully absent. She couldn’t imagine that a meeting with him would go terribly well, even if she wasn’t in the process of robbing him.

As it was, there was only one other person there, who only seemed perplexed to see her come in and then leave immediately.

Emma was aware that the thermos she had brought to carry the holy water was probably a little inappropriate for the task. The small plastic mug that served as a lid, and the homely tartan pattern on its body, probably didn’t exactly strike fear into the hearts of witches and demons. It was all she’d been able to find at short notice, though, so it would have to do.

She found herself strangely devoid of any other kind of apprehension, though, as she approached what she now thought of as Marianne’s house. In her mind, she dwarfed the small one-storey building, and it shrank back from her, unable to get away as she walked right up to the door and pressed the stiff button for the doorbell.

There was a kind of sick satisfaction in seeing Marianne’s hard, unforgiving expression melt into that wide, piercing smile as she realised it was Emma at her door. Even more so as Emma swung the heavy metal cross she’d hoisted over her shoulder, hitting her forehead dead on.

That probably wasn’t exactly what Lizzie would have done, but Emma thought there wasn’t too much harm in improvisation.

\--

Camille found herself strangely calm as she woke from her long-overdue nap, digging herself out from under her windbreaker-turned-blanked in an unhurried fashion. She’d expected, maybe, that she’d wake with a vague sense of wrongness, an itch or an ache in the back of her mind, which, when prodded, brought all the night’s anger and sadness and pain rushing back.

There was no ‘wrongness’, though, expected or otherwise. Even the panic at what had almost happened to little Hugo had subsided into a dull exhaustion, which, after her nap, was no more than a sense of relief that it was over and he was safe.

Experimentally, she let her mind wander over the shame she’d felt at seeing how Emma behaved towards Sophie, the sense of helplessness as Emma tried and failed to get out of the car, the betrayal at her later attempts to force her to stay. Even just the blunt, uncomplicated loss of the fact that she’d likely never see Emma again.

The sensation was nothing like it had been while she’d been driving. Despite her initial hesitance, she found she could poke at those wounds all she liked. Like they’d scarred over already.

She briefly wondered if she was just numb to it, blocking it out, but it wasn’t that it didn’t hurt. She still felt it. But it was manageable now. She could, if she wanted to, sit with those feelings all day and sort through them methodically, right here by the side of the road.

She paused in the middle of unearthing her phone to check the time, wondering if it was really that simple. She was going home, and she’d talked it through, and she’d taken the time to recharge at her mother’s suggestion. Was that really all it took?

If it was, though, that raised some questions about where she’d be at this point if she _hadn’t_ thought to take even one of those steps…

With that in mind, she found herself dialling for her mother once more, a thoughtful frown creasing her forehead.

Her mother answered promptly, as before, with a note of worry still lacing her voice.

“Camille? Are you okay?”

She hesitated. “Yes. I think… I am,” she said slowly, her only uncertainty being at how certain she felt. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about,”

Her mother waited patiently for her to explain.

“I’m wondering if I should… go back,”

“Go back?” Her mother sounded baffled. Fair enough, thought Camille. “ _Why_ would you do that?”

“Well…” She paused. How to explain it?

“Yesterday morning, she was… upset with me, and instead of being able to talk about it, her mother said some… harsh things. And—and I can see why she did, Emma’s said some cruel things to her, too, it’s just…” She took a deep breath. “Maybe she’d be less unstable if she had someone to turn to? Like I do,”

Her mother thought for a long moment. Camille could almost hear her turning it around in her head.

“But… She _did_ have someone to turn to. You were there for her, weren’t you?”

“Well. Yes,” she said slowly. “But I can see why she wouldn’t have seen it that way. Even before she was upset with me. I mean, she’s only known me for a short while relative to all those people in Elden, and _all_ of them seem to have some issue or other with her,”

She straightened in her seat as her thoughts gained momentum, starting to gesticulate once more.

“And I can see _why_ some of them do, I was _there_ for some of the things she did to provoke that. But even if she knew she had me to fall back on, one person isn’t really enough, is it? That’s why she put so much pressure on me, after all, right?”

“Well, I never met her, but that does make sense. But, Camille… being lonely isn’t an excuse for what she did to you. You know she’s not your responsibility, right?”

Camille frowned. “Of course I know that. I’m the one who left, remember?” She took another deep breath. “It’s just… if there’s some way we can still be together without one of us getting hurt, surely that would be better?”

Her mother paused. When she spoke again, she had a note of suspicion in her voice that clearly said that, if it was anybody else, she’d have hung up by now.

“So what would you do? If you went back?”

“Just… talk it through. And make it clear that I won’t let her do that kind of thing again. The moment she tries to manipulate me, I leave. It’s just… I think I understand her better now. And I think I’d like to give her one last chance,”

A sigh crackled through the phone’s speaker.

After a moment, she spoke. “You know her better than me. If you think there’s something worth salvaging, I’ll trust you. Just be careful, okay? Stay safe,”

“I will. I promise,” Camille said solemnly. And she meant it. She had no intention of going through that again even once, let alone regularly.

“ _And_ ,” her mother interjected, “Call home every so often while you’re there? Just so we know you’re safe, okay?”

Camille smiled inwardly. “Of course. I’ll text you when I get there, alright? And once I figure out if I’m gonna stay we can set something up,”

“Alright.” The relief was tangible over the speaker.

“Love you, mum. And tell dad I love him too, yeah?”

“Of course, Camille. I love you too. And…” She paused. “I hope you’re right about this,”

Camille gave her own sigh. “Me too,”

\--

Emma… wasn’t really sure what she should be doing here.

She had her cross and her holy water. And she had her… Marianne. She’d even had the brilliant idea to tie her up so that… something. It just seemed right at the time.

That’s what you _do_ when you knock someone out.

She’d been so excited to have found a way to fix her problem that she apparently hadn’t stopped to think about what that might actually entail.

So now she stood across the room from Marianne, becoming acutely aware that Marianne herself was starting to stir. She’d brought the book along with her, more as a symbol than anything else, but as it stood she was glad to have something to flick through; even if she didn’t find any clues as to what to do next, she thought it was appropriate to look like she was doing something when Marianne woke up.

At a creak from the chair Marianne was strapped to, Emma glanced up, before hurriedly flipping back to the beginning of the scene. It was hard to find the right page, though, in the dimness she’d created when she dragged Marianne back in here. If she was going to do this here, she’d reasoned, she’d do it her way.

“I…” she began, scanning intently to find Lizzie’s exact words. “I exorcise you, foul spirit,”

The words fell rather flat. She wasn’t really sure what kind of… tone she was supposed to read it in. It seemed a bit insulting, somehow, to try to make it too dramatic, but without the context of the scene, the words seemed hollow, and didn’t permeate the room the way they should. Like the air itself was embarrassed at her.

She steeled herself to continue. “Be torn and chased—”

“From God’s church, yes, yes.” The husky voice was loud enough to startle Emma. Marianne’s eyes were wide and alert, seemingly unaffected by her earlier blow to the head. “I read it too, you know,”

She nodded her head vaguely at her bookshelves, raising an eyebrow.

Emma swore quietly to herself, throwing up her hand as the book failed to offer anything she hadn’t already read. She dropped it haphazardly onto the table beside her as she turned bodily to face Marianne head-on.

It seemed a more direct approach might be necessary.

“Where’s my father?”

A hint of that now-familiar smile found its way onto Marianne’s stolen face.

“You know, I did wonder whether you’d figure it out,” she said conversationally, picking up that friendly tone she’d used the last time Emma had been here. “And, of course, if you did, _when_ ,” she continued.

Emma wasn’t really sure how to respond. This was… well, it wasn’t _irrelevant_ , but this wasn’t how this was supposed to go.

Marianne held her gaze intently, her pale brown eyes boring right through her skull and out the other side.

“So, what was it?”

Emma startled. “What was what?”

“What was it that made you realise? I know I didn’t tell you,”

Emma’s brow furrowed in annoyance. She leaned back against the table, crossing her arms; if this had to be a long, drawn-out heart-to-heart, she might as well get comfortable.

“It was the cat, if you really have to know.” She smirked a little as she added, “Not exactly subtle,”

Marianne’s eerie smile shifted a little, turning inwards and becoming almost fond.

Emma couldn’t resist. “Speaking of, where is the little bastard?”

Marianne huffed a slight laugh. “You should know, she likes to wander,”

Emma waited. She said nothing else.

With an irritated groan, she reached vaguely behind her on the table, speaking again as her hand closed on the plastic thermos, her ring clacking satisfyingly against its side.

“Where is my father?” She tried to make it sound intimidating. Threatening.

A look of disappointment flashed across Marianne’s face, like Emma was _boring_ her.

“I told you to write, and you did, and I gave your mother back. Write more, and I’ll keep up my end,”

Emma unscrewed the lid on the thermos, pouring a little out.

“I’m not writing.” Very threatening.

Marianne leaned back in her chair as Emma approached, her face falling back into that hard expression that hid behind all her smiles. She eyed the cup in Emma’s hand intensely, even as Emma moved to stand beside her, and held it over her head.

“I exorcise you, foul spirit,” she muttered vaguely as she overturned the cup. It seemed right to have something to say out loud.

The water splashed unceremoniously over Marianne’s forehead, not even doing Emma the service of making a dramatic sizzling sound when it hit her skin.

Marianne looked… well, like she’d just had a teacup full of water splashed in her face. She blinked it out of her eyes as it pooled in the deep cracks in her face, but otherwise didn’t even seem particularly irritated.

After a moment, though, that wide, wide smile returned.

“Oh, I get it,” she said. “Holy water to exorcise the witch, yes?”

A prickling fear crawled up the back of Emma’s skull.

Marianne peered over at the table across from her. “And that cross must be what you hit me with earlier.” She definitely sounded smug now.

Her eyes fixed on Emma without warning.

“Did you like it?”

Her voice was deep, and quiet, but it felt like the only sound in the world. There was no smile, but a satisfaction in her face behind those hard, intense brown eyes.

“Hitting the old woman’s face as if it were your own mother’s… I know you’ve dreamt about it,”

The room seemed to brighten around Emma, though the lights stayed off. The white walls, furniture, all of it just seemed to get… more white. It gave her a headache to look at it, the way it seemed to halo Marianne’s iron-grey hair.

She gave one final, blinding smile as she continued.

“You’ve had your fun, Emma. Try to take this seriously, now,”

Her eyes seemed to… recede as they turned a dull grey-green, before her head fell forward. There was a slight creaking sound as the room itself let out a breath it sounded like it had been holding for a long time. The walls fell into their natural shade of off-white in the dimness.

Emma was alone.

She let out her own breath, leaning back against the table again. What now?


	9. Of Second Chances

Emma had found herself in a kind of trance as she methodically untied Caro’s mother, laying her down on the couch Emma had sat on with Camille just a few days ago. It seemed to her that there was really nothing else to do, no other way to respond to the situation, but there was an underlying panic now, too; it was clear to her that this had spiralled well out of her control, had possibly never been under her control to begin with, and all she could do was hide the evidence of her very illegal tampering.

When she was done, a restlessness took her, a need to have something else to hide just so she could go through the motions of getting it out of sight.

In the end, though, all she could reasonably find to hide was herself. And, she reasoned, she probably shouldn’t leave her mother unattended for too long right now. She could be lonely. Or sick. And, she thought, _and_ what if she wanted to talk some more? That was apparently something they did now, and Emma found herself much more eager to approach that particular unfamiliarity than whatever Marianne had in store.

So she just… left. Feeling slightly bad about having to leave the door unlocked, but not seeing any way she could lock it and get out _quickly_ without essentially stealing the key.

The walk back home, though, ate at her. There was nothing she could fidget with, nothing she could convince herself needed straightening before she left, lest she be identified as the one who’d broken in. The best she could do was walk quickly, and that was as much because of the chill seeping in through her coat than anything else.

There was just a silence, in which all she could do was wonder where Marianne had gone, and what she was planning.

She had certainly made it _sound_ like she was planning something… but maybe she was making it up. Maybe all she wanted to do was scare Emma, and let the paranoia drive her into compliance. It might even have worked, Emma mused with a sense of underlying nausea, if it weren’t for the memory of the previous night still… well, not very fresh.

That was the problem, though, wasn’t it? She’d been so out of it she hadn’t even really been there.

As far as she was concerned now, though, the only important thing was to stop it happening again. It’s not like she could fix it, Camille had proven that. It was just another bridge to burn and then move on from.

When she reached the woods, the day seemed even dimmer than it had before, her vision cluttered with the dark silhouettes of the trees which were too bare to cast real shadows over her. The blank white of the sky seemed completely ineffectual at reaching her, though she could see it clearly hanging in the distance.

A familiar flash of orange joined her at some point in the directionless mass of trees, and she couldn’t really even bring herself to be surprised. The two of them passed the walk in silence, though she couldn’t deny the company was welcome. At least this was something that didn’t hate her yet.

She did find herself a little surprised as the cat kept pace with her, even as the house came into view, and she stopped a moment, briefly considering whether she should prevent it – her – from coming inside. She was surprisingly drained, though, from her… whatever that had been with Marianne, and she didn’t feel much like trying to make a small sharp animal do something it didn’t want to.

So when she pushed open the door and Pumpkin walked in ahead of her as if she owned the place, Emma just sighed and let her.

Also surprising were the sounds of movement from inside. It seemed, as she made her way around the little maze of front rooms, as though her mother was well enough to get bored, and had gotten up to mill around, doing little odd jobs of housework here and there.

In the end, Emma found her mother once again in the kitchen, though there was no warm glow from the oven this time. In that dim, close light Emma had always hated, with only the slightest help from the window, her mother had been methodically reorganising the cupboards, shuffling expertly to generate space, which she filled with the majority of the clutter on the workspace.

Emma wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen the countertops so bare, and she wasn’t sure whether to appreciate or resent it.

Her mother turned as she approached, greeting her with a warm smile that, under the hesitant light, still seemed somehow distant.

“Emma! How did your ‘something’ go?”

Emma found herself taken aback by the mischievous glint in her eye as she said it. Her mother must have been feeling a _lot_ better if she was being playful.

“I… honestly don’t know,” she said, massaging her forehead. Grudgingly, she added, “It was… maybe not the best idea, in the end,”

Her mother tilted her head slightly, raising her eyebrows as she continued her mission, though slower now, keeping Emma in the corner of her eye.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said finally. “I’m sure you’ll come up with something better, if you keep thinking on it,”

Emma hummed noncommittally, leaning against the doorframe. She was probably right; she had a lot to think about, and she probably just hadn’t considered everything, and that’s why it had gone wrong.

Before she could think of a more concrete reply, she was startled out of her head by the low rumble of a car pulling up outside the house. Her brow furrowed, the sound of the engine shutting off setting her on edge.

She sent her mother a brief look, and received a nod in return, and she pushed herself off the doorframe to go investigate. Her mother had looked just as baffled, and just as concerned, as Emma felt.

The sight that greeted her as she approached the glass of the front door filled her with a series of emotions that were so intense and intertangled, she initially couldn’t tell what they were at all.

There was relief, certainly, both at the fact that she recognised the car at all, and at whose she now knew it was: the bright, warm red of Camille’s car – or, her father’s, hadn’t she said? – looked like the only colour at all in the landscape, a welcome relief from the steadily dimming light of that flat, unforgiving day.

There was also uncertainty, which intensified into full-blown anxiety as she watched further. The door opened hesitantly, and the face Camille wore as she stepped out was guarded, unreadable.

She had no idea whether she had any reason to hope, or whether this was just another exercise in guilt waiting to happen.

As it was, she didn’t dare move beyond the threshold, standing awkwardly and still gripping the door’s handle, as if letting go would make the world around her disappear altogether, and she’d be completely at sea. Literally, she supposed.

Camille stood another moment by the car, gazing up at her, and at the house. Even from this distance, Emma could see the calculation behind her eyes, the assessment of whether she’d made the right choice coming back. Whatever she saw seemed to satisfy her for the moment at least, as she nodded inwardly, and made her way around the car and towards the house.

The purpose she seemed to walk with made Emma wonder whether she’d just come back to yell at her some more and then leave again. But, she hoped, that didn’t seem like the kind of thing Camille would do. Though maybe she’d make an exception. Emma thought she probably shouldn’t be making any assumptions.

Camille took a deep breath as she approached. “Can I talk to you?”

Emma nodded mutely, still gripping the door for dear life. She gestured vaguely behind herself, and Camille walked past Emma into the house, clearly trying very hard not to look at her as she did so.

Once inside, Camille led the way. It seemed she’d once again relaxed into her professional persona, addressing the awkwardness with the detached politeness Emma had heard her use on the phone countless times over the last six months. She gestured for Emma to sit when she reached the living room, as if they were in a meeting, Emma thought.

The detachment faded quickly, however, as she seemed to consider sitting down herself, before shaking her head a little and beginning pacing. Emma was glad to have some kind of confirmation that she wasn’t the only one uncomfortable, and she hoped distantly that her mother had the savvy to realise not to interrupt… whatever this was going to be.

“Right,” Camille began, coming to an abrupt stop in front of Emma. She sat up straighter.

“Right,” she repeated, more to Emma than herself this time. “So, I’m—I’m not going to apologise for leaving, because I think that was a good thing. For both of us. I don’t know about you, but I needed to clear my head after everything that happened last night,”

Emma nodded again. Camille took another deep breath before meeting her eyes again.

“But… I _am_ going to apologise for reading that article. I know that doesn’t make me… un-know it, but you were right to be upset. I mean, you warned me off it as explicitly as you could and I… didn’t take it seriously, so… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,”

That wasn’t what Emma expected to hear. She’d been so caught up in what had happened to Hugo that she’d almost completely forgotten about it. She was so shocked to hear about it again, and in such a context, that she almost forgot to be relieved.

She was relieved, though. She felt somehow… safer around Camille having heard her say that. She was right, she couldn’t take back reading it, but Emma found it comforting to know that she wasn’t the only one who had to admit to fucking up.

At the realisation that Camille seemed to be waiting expectantly for her to respond, she sat up straight again, suddenly feeling much less like a kid in detention.

“Uh… Thanks. For saying that. It… means a lot.” She rubbed at the back of her neck awkwardly, hoping that Camille knew what she meant. The slight smile she got in return told her she probably did.

At that, Camille sat down slowly, clearly thinking how best to proceed, her gaze turned inward and her brow furrowed.

“It’s just… I’ve been thinking about last night a lot. About why… all of it happened. And, the way you were acting, it was too easy to just blame you for everything and wash my hands of it. But now… I know it’s more complicated than that and I think we should talk about it. _Before_ I make any permanent decisions,”

Her eyes were fixed on Emma now, expectant but nervous. Like she was desperate to have been right about something.

Emma wasn’t really sure how to respond. She hesitated, frowning and picking at the hem of her sleeve while she waited for some helpful words to come to her. They’d never been this… reluctant before.

“I—Yes,” she said finally. “I… I’d like that. Talking, I mean,”

Her heart was racing at the effort of forcing the sentence out, though she supposed it could barely be called that. A glance up, though, revealed a slight smile on Camille’s face.

Encouraged, she took a breath and continued haltingly.

“I’m just—I don’t know how. To do it—right, I mean.” She took another breath. “And I… want to do it right. _This_ time,” she laughed a little under her breath.

Camille’s smile had widened, though still only slightly. It was still wary, but it had a touch of fondness to it now that made Emma think maybe she’d said something right.

“Right,” Camille said again, nodding decisively to herself. “Well, I… I’d like to understand you better. I’d like to be—friends, and I’d like to be able to give you the support you need, but I can’t do that unless you tell me what you need. And _without_ trying to force it out of me. Does that make sense?”

Emma nodded, her eyes misting up the way they had that evening.

“I… I know you were trying to help me,” she started slowly, not meeting Camille’s gaze. “That night. And I put you in an awful position… I guess I just…”

She paused. Another tentative glance up at Camille told her she was listening intently.

“I think… I think I was glad? I was… happy…” She shook her head suddenly, looking away again. “I’m sorry, I know that’s… not nice. I don’t remember much, to be honest…”

Camille’s gaze turned inward, and she adjusted her glasses thoughtfully as she leaned back, crossing her legs slowly.

“You were… _glad_ everyone was upset with you?”

Emma nodded.

“ _Why?_ ”

Emma’s heart gave another graceless, twitching leap at the question, and her face twisted with something like disgust. She forced herself to swallow back her instinct to just get up and leave, her leg jumping with the pent-up impatience. This was Camille, she reminded herself. This was important.

“I don’t know,” she said at length. She curled in on herself, hunching around her crossed arms. “I thought you must have hated me already. After what you read… and a whole night to process it. So it felt… right. To make it worse,”

Camille gave a thoughtful hum.

After a moment, she just said, “I didn’t hate you.”

And then, “I still don’t. I just wanted to understand you. _All_ of you,”

Emma didn’t know what to say to that. She only knew the nasty ache it created in her abdomen, a nausea that she felt was somehow years old, although she hadn’t remembered feeling it before.

Now, though, it reminded her of when her mother had come back – when Marianne had released her – and the sight of her had stirred up all kinds of emotions Emma had had locked away ever since she’d left home for the first time. Shame… hope… a strange longing. Mostly shame, and a bitter hatred she didn’t know whether it was more at herself or her mother.

Maybe that was it?

“I… was also mad at you,” she said finally, breathing it out in a rush. “I… didn’t want to talk to you. Maybe I—I wanted you to hate me so I could hate you properly,”

Camille nodded. She did seem sad, but not surprised. Emma supposed it wasn’t that surprising, in retrospect. Especially since Camille had had the drive back to figure it out.

“Do you?”

Emma started at the question. She straightened her back slowly as she thought about it, but the answer was clear, even to her, now that the question had been posed so directly.

“No,” she said. “It’s just always been easier to burn bridges than to—” she huffed a laugh. “To do—this, I guess,”

Camille frowned. “But then—why did you try to get me to stay? I mean, if you wanted to push me away, you did it. Why try to pull me back?”

Emma turned away, folding her arms over her chest and hunched over. She hesitated, her leg bouncing again.

Glancing hesitantly back at Camille, she took a deep breath. “I wanted you to stay. I just… realised too late that—that you matter to me,”

Camille leaned forward gently. “You matter to me too, Emma. But I need you to respect me enough to make my own decisions. And not just me. No more manipulation, okay?”

There was that ache again.

“I—yeah. Yeah.” Because what else could she really say?

Camille paused, the cogs in her mind audibly ticking over.

“With that in mind, I think…” she started slowly. “I think you should fire me,”

“ _What?_ ”

“Not like that!” she added hastily. “It’s just… I can’t be your assistant _and_ your friend. And I’d like to be your friend. But that means you can’t hold my career over me, and I’m not… responsible for you like before,”

Emma’s heart was racing as she desperately tried to tamp down on the feeling that Camille had only come back to cut all ties with her. Respect meant trust, right?

Still, she made a half-hearted attempt: “But what about your job? You’ll be unemployed…?”

Camille smiled impishly. “That’s not a problem. Just write me up a _glowing_ reference and we’ll call it even, yeah?”

Emma couldn’t help giving a short laugh of her own despite her nerves.

“Well,” she started, “I did say I wanted to get away from horror. I guess this can be my first experiment,”

“Just make sure it’s non-fiction,” Camille grinned.

Emma smiled, her heart rate easing slightly. Camille was still here, after all, and with the early evening drawing in, the soft blue ambience of the room reminded her of the first night they’d spent in Elden. The first night Emma had allowed herself to think of Camille as a friend. This time, though, it was early enough that the lighthouse didn’t yet shine in through the seaward-facing windows, and Emma found the lack of scrutiny comforting; even with her mother in the other room, she still felt sure that this time was theirs, and theirs alone.


	10. Of Mending pt1

The next morning, Camille awoke with the same sense of contentment and serenity she’d felt before she decided to return to Elden, and though this time she felt just a little more grounded, it still filled her with the same kind of distant surprise. It wasn’t that she felt her first steps with Emma hadn’t gone well, they absolutely had; but she knew there was a lot more to be done before she could even begin to think of the situation as ‘resolved’. But despite the fact that she only had the vaguest sense of what the next steps would have to be, she didn’t _feel_ uncertain. She was content to let this moment be itself, and only itself.

Emma, by contrast, as they made their way downstairs, seemed anxious. She kept throwing glances over her shoulder at Camille whenever she wasn’t in her direct line of sight, and each time she was reassured Camille was really still there, she sent her tentative little smiles, each one extended like an olive branch.

Camille returned them all, making a mental note that this might have to spring another Conversation.

Even when she wasn’t checking on Camille, Emma seemed disoriented; her gaze darted around the hallways, bouncing off the walls, the floors, the furniture, the doorframes, as if she didn’t know what to make of any of it. As if she’d never really noticed before what it looked like under the soft but insistent late-morning light pooling in through the windows.

In the end, Camille laid a hand on Emma’s shoulder, half steering her through the confusion of rooms and hallways, half letting her slow and flounder and take it all in, wandering like a raindrop down a window.

By the time breakfast was underway, Emma seemed to have settled, for now accepting that Camille wasn’t going to vanish and that this really was the house she grew up in. The two of them had just about slid into a more comfortable silence when Emma’s mother joined them. A few moments later, the cat, who seemed to have been allowed to just make herself at home, followed, settling herself on one of Emma’s feet.

“I heard you girls get up,” Mrs Larsimon said warmly, by way of explanation. “I thought I could keep you company,”

Camille smiled back. “I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” she responded. The ease and confidence with which Mrs Larsimon moved was almost startling in contrast to how Camille had last seen her, having to lean against the walls to keep standing.

Mrs Larsimon took her time making herself a cup of tea, before turning back to the two of them.

“So,” she continued casually, though her grin turned mischievous, “what new ‘something’ are you going to be getting up to today?”

Camille sent a quizzical glance to Emma, who was studiously avoiding both Camille’s and her mother’s eyes.

“We’ll probably… visit Caro. It’s been a few days,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “If that’s alright,” she added quickly, looking over to Camille.

Camille nodded in a way she hoped was encouraging.

Mrs Larsimon’s smile faltered for a moment, her brow tensing almost imperceptibly. “Caro… she’s still at the hospital?”

“Yeah. Seems alright, though.”

“Hm. I’d assumed she’d be out by now…”

“She probably will be soon,” Camille cut in. “She made it sound like it was just a precaution,”

The two of them set off soon after – another glance at Emma told Camille she’d probably appreciate the outlet for her nervous energy – with the cat once more in tow, having been disturbed by the removal of Emma’s shoe to nap on. Outside, it was warmer than it had been for the last few days, stiller and quieter in the wake of the night’s gentle rain. Even so, the moment Emma’s coat was on, her hands found their place deep in her pockets in a gesture Camille was starting to recognise.

Tentatively, she looped her arm through Emma’s, linking their elbows and sending her a lopsided grin.

“I didn’t hear it rain last night,” Emma said simply after they’d been walking a few minutes. Her eyes had settled on the ground again, though she looked more pensive than avoidant for now.

Camille nodded slowly. “You must have been tired,” she mused. “It was quite heavy for a while. I was a little worried it’d keep you up, actually,”

The tension around Emma’s eyes softened slightly at that.

“I guess you know what I’m like when I don’t get enough sleep,” she said, just shy of grinning. She seemed to find comfort in the teasing.

Another moment passed before she added, “Anyway, the rain usually _helps_ me sleep. I’ve always liked it. It’s like the sea came closer to visit for a while, y’know?”

Camille’s eyes skated slowly over the direction where she knew the coast lay, though she couldn’t convince herself she really saw it from this far off. The bright orange of the cat winding about their feet flashed in and out of her periphery, the contrast against the deep brown of the fallen leaves reminding her of a streetlight reflecting off the mirror of a damp pavement.

“I’d never really thought of it that way… but then I never got to know the sea like you did. Not until now, I suppose.” She found herself looking back towards Emma as she continued. “I always liked it, too, though. It made all the city noises… friendlier. Softer,”

Emma did smile then. “I know what you mean,”

The two of them walked in silence for a while after that, and as the trees began to thin closer to the town, it was easier to see how the clouds helped the day retain that dusky comfort from the night before; far from the sharp silhouettes of the day they’d first arrived, the town seemed cosier today, like it had finally agreed with itself what colour it wanted to be.

It was at that point that Emma’s phone buzzed in her pocket, her face adopting an endearing mix of confusion at who could be calling, and irritation at the moment being disturbed.

“Mm?” she hummed noncommittally into the receiver. “Oh, hi. We’re actually on our way already.” She grinned again, listening, before concluding with a friendly, “sure!” and hanging up.

Camille squeezed her arm gently, quirking her eyebrows in question as Emma looked over.

“Caro,” she explained. “Apparently she’s finally being discharged, so she wanted us to pick her up,”

Camille sent her a broad smile. “Good timing,” she said.

They walked in slightly calmer silence the rest of the way. Though Emma was still slightly restless, the walk certainly seemed to be helping, though through the passing of time or the sense of normality, Camille couldn’t tell.

There was a brief moment of confusion in front of the hospital as the two of them belatedly realised that the cat could absolutely not come inside, made easier by the fact that they now were picking up rather than visiting, but still requiring a certain amount of negotiation as to who would be the one left to babysit and who would go inside.

Thankfully, Pumpkin herself seemed to have no problem being left with Camille, rather she seemed to instead appreciate the opportunity to get to know her better, once again curling round her ankles and gently nudging at her boots as they waited.

\--

By the time the three of them had arrived at the wreck (with repeated assurances from Caro that she’d be okay if she had someone to hold on to, and they went slowly enough that she could find solid footing), it had begun to lightly drizzle again, and with it the sea winds had picked up just enough that the wreck began to feel like less of a pedestal on which to present them to the world and more of a gentle cave to take shelter in, despite leaving them just as open to the elements as they’d been walking up. The wood was firm, though, and the impression that it had grown there, was rooted in the cliff-face, finally seemed to show its true purpose, grounding them just like the lighthouse in the distance.

Caro took a deep breath as she sat herself down, a satisfied smile on her face, as though she could taste the misty lilac of the clouds rather than see them.

“It’s been too long,” she said fondly, extending her arm along the back of the wreck as Emma took her place beside her.

Emma grinned. “You were only in hospital for, what, a week? Come on,”

Caro’s smile turned sheepish.

“Well… You know how I told you before I went to hospital, I was trying to pretend it wasn’t that big of a deal?” Emma hummed her assent with an undertone of suspicion. “I, uh. Never thought to ask for help getting up here before. Just kind of got in the habit of making excuses, to be honest,”

“Pff.” Emma leaned back and crossed her arms, though she was still grinning. “And you gave _me_ a hard time about not wanting to come here,”

Caro only laughed in response, gripping the wood just a little harder and leaning into Emma as a stronger gust of wind hit them.

Camille joined them from where she’d been lagging slightly behind, sitting on Emma’s other side, and bringing her legs up beside her, the better to huddle. The cat had stuck with her behind the others, seeming to notice the way Camille left the space, and now sat on Camille’s lap, looking like she fully intended to settle right there and nap the whole afternoon away.

A few moments later, Caro broke the silence once more.

“So, Emma… or, both of you, I guess,” she began. “Have you… been back? To see my mum?”

“ _I_ haven’t.” Camille frowned. “Are you still worried about her?”

Caro nodded absent-mindedly.

A few more moments passed, in which Emma remained resolutely silent, though her fidgeting with the hems of her sleeves had increased in speed.

“… Emma?”

She took a deep breath.

She shot Camille a worried glance, before turning to Caro, and beginning slowly.

“So.” She halted. “You remember how I said… Well, I said—that thing about how your mother… was calling herself ‘Marianne’?”

Caro hesitated, then nodded, her frown deepening. Camille only listened intently.

“Well, I—listen,” she stopped herself again. “This is gonna sound… bad. But you—listen—”

“Uh-huh?”

“So. Did I tell you about how my parents went missing?”

Caro startled, her voice full of alarm. “No?”

“Well, they went missing a couple days ago, Camille was there—” she gestured vaguely behind herself to where Camille sat, trying not to move a muscle. “—and before that I… I had a dream that Marianne, y’know, the actual Marianne, from the books, she… stole them.”

She hastily turned to Camille as she continued. “And—and I didn’t mention it to _you_ , cus I didn’t think you’d really believe it was related, cus it sounds ridiculous, and, well, I tried to convince myself it wasn’t related either, but—”

Camille stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Breathe, Emma,”

Emma breathed. Shakily out, then determinedly in. Then she continued.

“That—That was the day I saw the cat, and I told you, Caro—” she turned again, gesturing to Caro, who nodded. “—so, I thought maybe I should… check her out. Cus… if she was Marianne, and Marianne took my parents, then maybe I could…”

She trailed off completely then.

“Maybe you could what?”

She took another deep breath.

“Well. So. Good news, bad news. The bad news is, she _was_ Marianne. Good news is, she’s not any more!”

Camille brought her free hand up, nudging her glasses out of the way to massage the bridge of her nose.

“ _Emma_ ,” she said slowly. “What did you _do_?”

Emma was shaking slightly under Camille’s hand, the tension only held in check by the fact that Camille had made no move to get up. Yet.

“In my defence, I didn’t know you were coming back. Y’know, what’s _one_ more bad decision? And, really—”

“ _Emma_ ,”

“I may have broken into her house and tried to exorcise her?”

Camille’s hand fell from her face, and she simply stared at Emma in utter disbelief, though her glasses were so wet with the misting rain by that point it was doubtful she could see her properly.

“But!” she continued, after an awkward pause, “Good news, bad news! Bad news is, it didn’t work. Good news is, she left anyway! Bad news, I don’t know where she is now… but good news, I will not do that again! We talked about it, right?”

She leaned in to Camille, desperation palpable in her tension.

Camille sighed deeply, before rubbing at her shoulder.

“Right,” she said. She huffed a laugh, her arm extending around Emma’s shoulders, brushing up against where Caro’s still rested on the back of the boat. “Right,”

Caro herself was still frowning inwardly when she broke the silence again.

“How do you know she left?”

“Huh?”

Caro turned towards Emma slightly, seeming to come out of her reverie.

“How do you know my mum isn’t Marianne any more?”

Emma paused. “Well, I mean. It seemed pretty obvious. Like, her eyes changed colour and everything—”

“What, _really_?”

Emma nodded. “They were brown when we went to see her, right Camille?” At Camille’s nod, she continued, “And when she left yesterday, her they turned light. Like, grey, I dunno. And she passed out,”

Caro nodded absent-mindedly.

“Also, now that I think of it, this little bastard hasn’t been back there since,” Emma said, reaching over to give Pumpkin a light scratch at the back of her neck.

Caro turned back to her again. “Is she… I mean, did she seem to be… _okay_? When you left?”

Emma rubbed at the back of her neck.

“As far as I could tell? I mean, she was unconscious. But my mum was taken by Marianne and she seems to have recovered pretty much completely, right Camille?”

Camille nodded. “Right,” she said. “We can come with you to check on her later, though, if you want?”

Caro nodded, her frown easing slightly.

A few minutes passed in silence, the light rain clearing once more, before Caro suddenly spoke again.

“Where did she come from? I mean… if she’s real, she must’ve… _come_ from somewhere…?”

Emma’s mouth opened as if to speak, before shutting it with a snap. Her brow furrowed, and she opened her mouth again.

“I… assumed I invented her. Like I always told you,”

Caro grinned. “What, you just _made_ her real? By sheer force of imagination?”

Emma shrugged, turning out to the hazy white horizon, as if it might hold her answers. The arm around her shoulders disappeared as Camille took her glasses off, doing her best to wipe off the accumulated dampness, though it mostly just smeared.

“What, then, am I supposed to, like, google her?”

Caro laughed. “Why not?”

Emma snorted, shoving her lightly. “If I do that, all that’ll come up is my books. I’ve saturated the Marianne market, there’s no room for the real one any more,”

“Well, actually, that’s a good point,” Caro said, sitting up straighter, withdrawing her arm so she could bodily turn to face Emma and Camille. “Say you didn’t invent her. Why are you the one dreaming about her, then?”

“Hm, maybe my house is built on an _ancient burial ground_.” She waggled her fingers suggestively.

“Sure!” Caro said, not seeming to notice the sarcasm amid her mounting excitement. “But if _that’s_ true, then she must have been a local, right? And if she’s _haunting_ you, then she probably _was_ a witch of some kind. _So_ ,” she continued, gesticulating wildly by now, “maybe the church has some record of her! I mean, it’s pretty old, right? If she was _here_ we could find her!”

Emma had frozen as soon as Caro suggested it, the cogs in her head audibly whirring.

After a moment’s thought, and then a moment’s hesitation, she turned sheepishly back to Camille.

“Okay, so I know I _said_ I wouldn’t break in anywhere again—”

“ _Emma_ —”

“No, but, if you come with me—” she stopped, taking a breath. “It’s just—if understanding what she really wants could get my dad back…”

Camille gave another deep sigh, finally replacing her glasses on her face.

“That’s… a good point, actually,” she said. “I think… If you do I’ll come with you, but let’s just… make sure we’ve thought it through first, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Emma nodded slowly, a slow smile forming on her face. “Yeah,”


	11. Of Mending pt2

They took Caro home later that day, as promised, with the intention to stay and make sure her mother was okay (and, importantly, herself). The difference was palpable, however, even before they saw Mrs Daugeron, even amid the last dregs of Camille’s scepticism: the outside of the house seemed revitalised, somehow, the previously wild garden just a little friendlier, and the door that had looked abandoned now seeming simply worn from repeated use. The inside was different, too, still done up in pastels, but it now had a dusty, lived-in quality to it. It was no longer _trying_ to be homely; it was a home.

The surreality extended to Mrs Daugeron, too, predictably. There was none of Marianne’s defensiveness, her suspicion, in the way she moved to open the door to them, and the lines in her face had softened, no longer carved of wood. And, of course, her eyes, though lighter, were softer, less calculating, as she smiled a gentle, _genuine_ smile that only now revealed the hostility of Marianne’s.

She seemed, to Emma’s surprise, glad to have the company, and, to her relief, glad to have _any_ company; gone, as well, was the unsettling fixation Marianne had had on her. Mostly, she seemed thrilled to see her daughter again, but she met Camille with polite interest, asking after her and Emma in ways Emma hadn’t realised she’d missed last time they were here.

Mrs Daugeron’s relief was tangible when Caro brought up Marianne.

“I really didn’t know how to bring that up to you,” she said. “I wasn’t even sure _I_ believed it, to be honest,”

She hesitated a moment. “I don’t remember what I did when I was… her, though. I’m sorry. I hope she didn’t… alienate any of you girls,”

Caro smiled. “I don’t really remember her either, which… I guess that was her intention. The only way she alienated _me_ was by giving me a reason to leave for a few days. Not exactly super-villain behaviour,” she laughed.

Other than that, Caro’s mother seemed perfectly healthy. She’d been disoriented, she said, after waking up, and she’d had to take a few hours to disentangle _her_ self from Marianne’s, but having company helped. It grounded her, she said.

\--

The next step, though of what Emma wasn’t sure, was to talk to Séby. She and Camille had both agreed that, simultaneously and unanimously, despite Emma’s anxiety.

“Just call him,” Camille had eventually said. “And ask to talk. The worst he can do is say no,”

“But… what if he _does_?”

“If he does, then he does. It’d be sad, definitely, but it’s still his choice. And if that’s his response, wouldn’t you rather know it and have closure?”

Emma had sighed, pulling a face as she pulled out her phone.

It was a few days before Séby had the time to meet Emma, it turned out. At least, that’s what he’d said. Emma was resolutely hanging onto the fact that he _hadn’t_ outright said no, though he _had_ sounded deeply exasperated to be hearing from her.

Camille had, mercifully, agreed to come with Emma, if only, she said, because she’d also been there that night.

“I can’t do your talking for you, Emma, it wouldn’t be fair to you _or_ him,” she’d said. “But it might be helpful for context,”

Emma had nodded, knowing Camille was mostly making an excuse to be there to calm her nerves, but reassured nonetheless.

So, a few days later, the two of them sat at the wreck once again, which was quickly becoming the go-to setting for all her awkward reunions and confessions. Emma wasn’t sure whether that was a pattern she should encourage or derail; she didn’t really want to spoil the positive association with the area, but she figured that was also part of the reason it worked so well here.

By the time Séby arrived, yelling and waving from the mainland just like last time, the sky was cloudless and blue, deceptively inviting for how cold it made the wind, though the familiarity of the ever-present roar of the grey-green waves below was a comfort. Emma also found she didn’t mind the cold so much when it gave her an excuse to take Camille’s hand, the two having eventually migrated into one of Emma’s deep pockets.

As Séby came into view in front of the wreck, this time at an easy saunter rather than the energetic jog of last time, he gave another small wave, mostly directed at Camille.

“I didn’t realise you’d both be coming,” he said, though to Emma’s relief he mostly seemed amused. Emma just gave a vague shrug in response; he could probably tell well enough what Camille was doing here.

He sat down on Emma’s other side, hunching his shoulders slightly against the sudden cold of the wood. He was sat about as far away from her as he could on the small boat, she noted, though that wasn’t particularly far.

They sat in silence for a few moments as Emma tried to figure out how to broach the subject gracefully. She could feel Séby’s expectant silence from where she carefully wasn’t looking at him, and resisted the temptation to slump down on the seat. A glance at Camille rewarded her with an encouraging nod.

“So,” she began finally, having more-or-less decided to just wing it. “About… the other night,”

Séby’s eyebrows rose as he waited for her to continue, eventually offering a perfunctory “Uh-huh,” of confirmation.

“Well,” she continued, haltingly. Another nod from Camille. “I guess I should start by… apologising for… all that,”

“Yeah?”

She brought up her free hand to rub self-consciously at the back of her neck. “Yeah,”

When she was met only with continued (and continually expectant) silence, she took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

“I’m… sorry. For how I acted. Especially to… your wife. That was…” she took a moment to find the words. “Not fair. And rude,”

Séby gave a subtle, almost inscrutable smile, and nodded, more to himself than anything else.

“Yeah,” he said, his posture easing a little, “it was,”

After a moment, he added, “What the hell _happened_? I know you used to be a bit blunt sometimes, but it was never like _that_ ,”

“I’m… not sure that’s actually true. I think you might have just got lucky until then,” she said.

Séby’s eyebrows shot up. “So, what, I’m supposed to just accept that you’re awful and nothing can be done about it?”

“No, that’s—that’s not what I meant,” she said, squeezing Camille’s hand lightly. “Just… that wasn’t as unusual as all that,”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” he pushed.

“Right.” She took a moment. “I—kind of had a fight with my mum, and with Camille… sort of. So I kind of wanted someone to be petty to. And I was… jealous. Not like that!” she added quickly. “Just… I spent so long not letting myself come back here, not even realising that I… missed being part of your lives. All of you,”

He nodded again. “That makes sense,” was all he said.

“It’s just… surreal, seeing how all of you have moved on, y’know?”

“Of course I know,” he said, laughing a little. “You’ve moved on too, even if you don’t think you have. It’s just as weird seeing you back here after all this time, seeing there’s this… new person, who none of us have met, being so important to you,”

Emma exchanged a glance with Camille, who squeezed her hand back.

“And that doesn’t mean I’m not happy for you. I don’t know about the others…” he trailed off. “But it feels like we missed a piece of you,”

Emma nodded.

“Yeah,” she said again.

After a moment of silence, she added, “I just wish… I wish I hadn’t _chosen_ to avoid this place. I wish it wasn’t my fault that I missed all this,”

He laughed again, softly. “We all make choices. None of us kept in contact with you, either,” he pointed out.

Emma nodded slowly.

“Why didn’t you?”

Séby sighed out at the waves, visibly casting about for the memories, dusting them off as he found them, struggling to find the words to describe them.

“I don’t know about any of the others… but I think most of us assumed you’d rather be left alone. That that’s why you left,” he said. “Although, I think part of it was also just being lazy. Out of sight, out of mind, right?”

Emma nodded. That response didn’t shock her as much as she’d expected it to, though it did ache.

“Why didn’t _you_?” he shot back.

She gave her own sigh. “I… have a bad habit of… assuming things are dead because I left them. I thought there was nothing good left here. It turned into this whole… thing, in my head, that I could never look at because it would only be hard and I’d only mess it up,”

Séby turned to face her again.

“I meant it when I said I was glad you were back,” he said. “It wasn’t just… what I said because it’s what you say to people. I meant it,”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling slightly.

“What did you fight about?” he said suddenly, before hastily adding, “if you don’t mind telling me,”

She ran a hand through her hair, wearily.

“Remember that thing I wrote about my mum?”

“Oh,” he said, second-hand discomfort palpable on his face. “Yeah,”

“We didn’t really fight,” she said after a moment. “It was just… bad. Y’know?”

Séby nodded emphatically. “Yeah. I know,”

“It must be… hard,” he said. “To have people still hold it against you,”

“I mean… it still exists. It’s still out there somewhere, and… I can’t blame my mum for still being hurt by it. For so many reasons.” She exhaled heavily. “But… yeah. It is,”

She glanced over her shoulder at Camille. Camille shot her an apologetic smile, giving her hand another squeeze as she leaned in against the wind. Again, Emma found herself appreciating the cold; there was something gentle, something friendly, about the way it gave them something to be together against. It was one of the things, Emma thought, that made the wreck feel like a home, despite being no kind of shelter from the elements.

“Is… Is your son okay?” she said after a while.

Séby gave a fond smile at the mention of him. “Yeah, he is. We’ve been keeping a close eye on him since that night, and he doesn’t seem to remember anything bad. And,” he added, “he hasn’t tried to do it again,”

Emma let out a sigh of relief she hadn’t realised she’d been holding.

“That’s good,” she said, hoping her sincerity came through.

“Don’t get me wrong, we’re still watching to make sure. It’s only been a few days,” he said seriously. “But yeah, we’re… really glad,”

Emma nodded. “And… Sophie?” she added hesitantly.

Séby laughed out loud at that.

“No need to be so enthusiastic,” he said, still grinning. “But she’s okay. She’s glad Hugo’s safe. And…”

“And?”

“Well, when you called, we talked about it. She was… still annoyed at you, but I think she gets that you’re important to me. So she was glad you called to try to make it right,”

Emma sighed.

“I wouldn’t expect her to invite you over again any time soon, though,” Séby added. “Sorry,”

“No, that’s—that’s fair,” she said. “As long as she doesn’t mind us hanging out. I don’t want to… be a complication,”

Séby just shook his head, that easy smile on his face again.

Emma took a deep breath. “The other thing is…”

“The other thing?”

“Yeah,” she said. “The other thing is, I… probably don’t have to tell you that I… make bad decisions when I drink too much. I mean, I know I’m not perfect when I’m sober but…” she trailed off with an exaggerated gesture.

“Right…” he said. “So, what? Are you saying you’re gonna stop? Completely?”

She nodded slowly. “I might have to, at least for a while… y’know, that way I know if I do drink, it’s because it’s nice, not because I’m trying to just… avoid responsibility, right?”

She glanced back and forth a few times between Séby and Camille, looking for confirmation. Camille squeezed her hand again, leaning in once more, though this time there was no wind to brace against.  
“So, you want me to help you tell the others?” Séby said after a moment, putting the pieces together.

Emma just nodded again.

Séby nodded back, smiling. “I think I can do that,”

\--

In the end, Emma and Camille didn’t stay too long, heading home after just another half hour. It made sense, Emma supposed, since the day was only going to get colder from that point on, and Séby said he’d have to go home soon anyway. She found she didn’t mind as much as she expected though; she didn’t want what had felt like a productive conversation to turn awkward.

As the car pulled up to Emma’s parents’ house (or, what she was frightfully close to thinking of just as “Emma’s house”), the two of them sat once again, in the kind of thoughtfulness that only happened in parked cars and train stations.

Emma was the first to break the comfortable silence.

“Did I… do it right, do you think?” she tried tentatively.

Camille startled a little, turning to her with a smile. “I think so,” she said.

“I didn’t want to just… make excuses, y’know?” Emma leaned forward, crossing her arms on the dashboard and resting her chin on them. “And we only kind of talked about that night,”

“I think… you talked about it more than you think,” Camille said. “But really, the important thing is that you clearly talked about what you _needed_ to talk about. That night was just the catalyst, I guess,”

Emma nodded, her cheek rubbing against the thick fabric of her coat.

“Thanks for being there,”

Camille just took her hand again, squeezing it hard, with a brilliant smile that lit the deep brown of her eyes up behind her glasses.

The two of them headed inside after another long moment. They walked once again hand-in-hand, taking the short walk at as leisurely a pace as they could, as though to walk to quickly would be to disrespect the hard-won contentment of the moment.

As they climbed the short stair up to the front door, crossing the threshold at the same gentle pace, a small knot of unease grew in Emma’s stomach, though she couldn’t put her finger on why until they were fully inside.

It was the transition between the pale, unobtrusive grey of the outdoors and the bright, intense light just inside the door, a state she’d never seen the front room in before as long as she remembered.

The unease morphed into a quick stab of panic in her chest as her mother turned to her from where she was sat reading, the familiar crystalline blue of her eyes replaced with a pale brown that was itself becoming more and more a feature of Emma’s life.

She sent a tight, forced smile back, before moving on without a word, pulling at Camille’s hand as they headed deeper inside, the light from the living room receding as they went.

“Emma? What’s wrong?” Camille finally said in an agitated whisper, mercifully having the good sense to wait until they were out of earshot.

“Camille, that was—” she stopped, lowering her voice even more. “That was _Marianne_ ,”

“ _What?_ ”

Emma shot a nervous glance down the hallway they’d come down, though she couldn’t see any sign of her mother around the bend in the corridor.

“I _knew_ something was up with her,” she said. “I was just—I didn’t want to get distracted, y’know? I—”

Camille brought her free hand up to Emma’s shoulder, facing her straight on. “Emma, are you _sure_?”

Emma only nodded, trying to force her breathing to slow enough to think clearly.

“Maybe…” she said slowly, after a moment. “We should… reconsider looking for that record Caro was talking about,”

Emma’s eyes snapped to Camille’s face, her attention finally caught.

“You think… you think that would… help?” she said.

Camille took a deep breath, sending her own uncertain glance down the corridor.

“It’s… a place to start, if nothing else, right?”

Emma nodded, slowly, then with purpose, her racing heart finally under control.

“Right,”


	12. Of Understanding (Messy Though it is)

The two of them set off for the church that evening, taking Camille’s car in the interest both of efficiency, and of potentially being able to leave quickly if they were caught. It was a clear evening, with a chill that had a presence to it, as if the night itself wanted them to be aware of every move they made.

The church grounds, set back from the main road down a dirt path much like Emma’s parents’ house, were a deep black already, despite the sky still having some last traces of blue from the fading day, but the interior of the church was well lit. It was, as they got closer, that strange light of electric additions to an aging structure designed for gas fixtures and candles, a light that was both uncomfortably bright for what the bulbs pretended to be, and which only shed that light along narrow axes, leaving odd, unpredictable swathes of the room in surreal shadow.

The pews were empty as they entered, though a few genuine candles lit on the rack on the far side of the room suggested someone may have been here more recently than was apparent in the utter silence. Not wanting to break it, either from fear of discovery or something less tangible, Emma indicated where she remembered, across fifteen years, the priest’s rooms were, closed to the public.

She reached for the door, hesitating just as Camille’s hand twitched in her direction with the intent to stop her.

“We… we can’t just walk in, right?” Emma whispered.

Camille shook her head. “Either it’s locked, or he’s in there,” she said.

Emma pulled a face and shoved her hands petulantly in her pockets. Then, a flash of inspiration and mischievous delight that made Camille want to groan.

She leaned in conspiratorially, practically stage-whispering, “He probably has a window!”

Offering no other explanation, she dashed out of the church again, barely waiting for Camille to follow.

As she turned the corner to the outside of the back of the church, her suspicions were confirmed by the sight of Emma, a few metres away from the wall, indicating with a grin to a small, high window that, to her credit, almost certainly _was_ the one they needed, and that, mercifully, was open a crack.

Realising a split-second too late what Emma was going to do, Camille reached out futilely to stop her, as she took off at a run towards the wall below the window, leaping at it in an attempt to grab the window sill.

She hit the brick of the wall with an uncomfortable-sounding smack, crumpling unceremoniously to the grass.

Camille rushed over, awkwardly crouching to pull her up.

“Are you okay?”

Emma swore quietly as she regained her balance. “I think I messed up my elbow,” she said, still breathless, rubbing at her (presumably messed-up) arm, and turning unsteadily to face Camille. “Give me a boost,”

“ _What?_ ”

“You bend over, and I’ll climb on your back,”

Camille stared at her. “You’re out of your mind,” she declared. “Move over,”

She half-shouldered Emma out of the way as she laced her fingers together under the window, indicating them with her head. “Go on,” she said.

“You sure you can hold out?”

“Get on with it!”

Emma obligingly put her foot in Camille’s hands, lurching asymmetrically upwards as she tried to simultaneously grab at the window sill for balance, and open the window wider with her other hand.

“Good news!” she whispered down haltingly. “It’s empty!”

“Of course it’s empty, if he was in there he would have caught us as soon as he heard you barrelling into the wall at top-speed,”

Emma pulled another face in Camille’s direction, finally finding purchase to lever the window open as far as it would go. She stuck her head in, bent over the wall at the waist, her other leg swinging precariously as she tried to look around while still maintaining her balance.

With one last shove, she see-sawed slightly, before falling forward through the window, flipping over and landing on her back, this time with less of a smack and more of a thud.

“Emma?” A muffled voice came through the wall. “Are you alright?”

She sat forward, overshooting slightly before she righted herself.

“I’m in,” she said as she turned back to face the wall, still whispering despite the place being seemingly deserted.

“I can see that,” came the sardonic response. Hands appeared on the window sill. “Now let me up!”

Emma stood slowly, rubbing absent-mindedly at her spine.

“I’ll find a spare key and let you in from inside,”

“ _What?_ You want me to stand around outside the door like an idiot?”

“Go sit in the pews, that’s what they’re for,” she said over her shoulder, already leafing through the desk in the corner. She heard no response, so she kept digging, opening and half-closing drawers and cabinets.

A few moments later, she opened the door to an uncomfortable-looking Camille, who promptly rushed over and shut the door again.

“You do _know_ people are allowed to be in churches, right?” Emma quipped with a light grin as she went back to sifting through very dry-looking documents.

Camille gave her a light, playful shove. “What if someone had come in while I was waiting? They’d have seen you open the door.” She turned to look through the shelves on the other side of the room. “And typically, people _aren’t_ allowed to be in the parts of churches with signs that say ‘no public access’,”

Emma shot a grin over her shoulder, before turning back to the table, looking through the same drawers again for some kind of records.

After a few minutes, she was cut short by Camille’s voice from across the room: “Is this it, do you think?”

Emma turned to see her pull down an attractive, official-looking book, tall and apparently leather-bound. It creaked satisfyingly as she opened it to its title page, the thick paper warped slightly from the dense handwriting inside.

“ _Herein lie the reports of the trials of various local witches, carried out and recorded chronologically by Ulrich Molitor, Crown Prosecutor_ ,” she read aloud, raising her eyebrows pointedly at Emma as she came over to look over her shoulder.

“Well, is there some kind of table of contents?”

Camille turned the page. “Apparently he didn’t think that far ahead,” she said.

Emma reached around her, flipping quickly through accounts headed with names she didn’t recognise.

“This one!” she said, laying her hand flat on a page about a third of the way through the book, helpfully entitled, “Marianne Basselin”.

Camille peered around her hand at the entry. “Are you sure? There could be more than one Marianne in here…?”

“That’s the one, I’m sure!” Emma said, already turning away to shuffle haphazardly at the books on the shelf to cover the gap they’d made. Camille closed the book slowly with a doubtful look, and followed suit, replacing the keys and closing everything they’d opened.

A short car ride and hasty call to Caro later, they found themselves pulling up to Caro and her mother’s home, making their way hastily inside and gently shutting the living room door so the noise didn’t make it upstairs.

“So? What does it say?” Caro said without preamble.

Emma paused from where she was making her way around the room, switching on dim shaded lamps at irregular intervals. “We haven’t read it yet!” she said indignantly.

“Well, get on with it, then!”

Emma made a show of settling herself down, opening the book to the right page with great ceremony, and, for good measure, clearing her throat loudly.

“ _I can assert on this Holy Tuesday that Marianne Basselin has for the Lord’s work only disgust, rage, and contempt_.”

“Nice guy,” Caro interjected, before being hushed by the increasingly exasperated Emma.

“D’you wanna hear this or not?” she said. When she was met with amused, but obliging, silence, she continued.

“ _In the year of our Lord 1587, she is born of Blanche and Auguste Basselin, a blacksmith. On her seventh birthday, the family’s home goes up in smoke. Out of the burning house emerge only the young Marianne and her cat, Mathurin._

“ _Marianne is raised by the Sisters of the Sacred Court. Over the next two years, the plague strikes the convent. Buboes and dark blood in the valley spare neither child nor saint, except the teenage Marianne and her cat, Mathurin._

“ _At sixteen, she marries Paul Marot, a bell ringer. Very soon, a child is born, strong and healthy, until he turns three months old, and his wooden cradle is left too close to the hearth. He is devoured alive by the flames. His parents mourn him, and Marianne clamours around the village that the cradle sounded hollow._

“ _Wanting to redeem himself, Paul wants another child. Marianne gives him two who will live to be older. But on a solstice night, Marianne takes them in the moonlight to play in the Horned Wood. Some say not only three were in the Wood that night._

“ _One thing is certain: Marianne came back alone at dinnertime._

“ _She slits the throat of bell ringer Paul Marot. Legend holds that Marianne wed Beleth, king of cats, and ruler of eighty-five legions of Hell, before the Devil. The lumberjack’s son, curious, swears before God he has seen the fires of Hell dance on the sitting room’s walls._

“ _We captured tonight the Cursed One. She cried out to the world: ‘I will return to take your children, and your grandchildren, and they will experience Hell. You can believe Marianne; she never leaves empty-handed.’_

“ _Marked with the Holy Cross, buried five feet under and with her, without a doubt, will her pact with the Devil be burned until nought is left. Then will her soul be freed, removed from the Devil’s reach, and pardoned before God._

“ _Amen._ ”

As Emma looked up from the densely-packed scrawl, she felt herself resurface slowly, blinking into the silence as the well-organised living room became familiar again. The room was once again holding its breath.

“ _Well_ ,” Caro said emphatically. “After careful consideration, I’m going to have to stand by what I said earlier,”

Emma blinked once again, turning to Caro in disbelief. “ _Seriously?_ Did you even _hear_ all the things she’s done?”

“I mean, not really? Read it over, he’s mostly just _implying_ that things are her fault. ‘Oooh how _spooky_ that she had the good sense to get out of a burning house’,” she said sarcastically. “But more to the point, that literally tells us nothing because _every single witch trial account_ sounds _exactly_ like that,”

Camille raised her eyebrows. “She does have a point, Emma,”

Emma opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, and then shut it again with a snap.

“Look, you said that thing was a compilation, right? Pick another one, at random, and tell me it doesn’t say the exact same things,”

Wordlessly, she complied, flipping through to another account. Lucile NoLastName, apparently.

“Hm… born 1622… ‘odd behaviours’ growing up… never married, but was… pursued? By some guy, a tailor… until he ‘suddenly’ realised she was a devil-worshipper and reported her,”

“Let me guess, she probably _also_ murdered children and bathed in their blood or something?”

Emma hesitated, skimming back over it. “More or less,” she conceded grudgingly.

Caro nodded, giving a gesture of vindication.

Emma’s brow furrowed in thought. “But… I mean, what are you trying to say? That Marianne isn’t ‘really’ a bad person? That doesn’t make any sense,”

Caro gave a sigh. “That’s not what I mean,” she said. “I’m just saying that that doesn’t tell us anything about her life, because it’s the same garbage you hear everywhere about witches. Whether she’s a bad person is irrelevant; the point is you can’t trust anything that guy wrote,”

She paused a moment before continuing. “Now that we come to it, I don’t really know what else I expected from church records,”

Emma leaned back, closing the book with a defeated waft of air that smelled of old paper.

“So this was all just a waste of time?” she said, her eyes flitting between her two friends.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Camille said. “We at least know her full name now. And we know when she was born, and who her parents were. If we _did_ try to look her up online, it’d probably be more fruitful now,”

Caro waved a finger in her direction, as if to emphasise the point.

“Not just that,” she added. “It’s murkier than all that stuff, but there’s some things we might be able to… infer, at least,”

“Like what?”

“Well, I have no idea about plagues or whatever, that could just be generic slander, but… I mean, women don’t, historically, murder their husbands for no reason, y’know? I guess some do, but statistically speaking…” she quirked her eyebrows pointedly. “Especially since she was a teenager when she married,” she added.

Emma paused, mind whirring. “And the ‘marriage to the demon’?”

“Could be a bunch of things. It might just be a way of referring to the fact that she was unmarried, to make it sound evil. Or she could have had an affair, or remarried someone they also wanted to – heh – demonise. Or, fuck, she might have actually _been_ a witch with some kind of patron, but whether they were a ‘demon’ that she ‘married’ is very much up for debate,”

“But what about the kids? He said—”

“I don’t know, Emma, if you really want to know the specifics you might just have to ask her,”

Emma recoiled. “ _Ask_ her? She’s dangerous!”

Caro sighed deeply.

“Yeah, I know. But if you actually want to hear a realistic account of what happened, that’s probably your best bet.” She grinned sardonically as she continued, “At least, he was probably right about one thing. She probably _did_ have nothing but contempt for the church, given that they murdered her,”

Emma gave a vague hum of acknowledgement, lost in her thoughts. The light nausea she felt at the thought of just walking up to Marianne and asking her opinion was compounded by the warring sensation of guilt at the realisation that she’d never allowed herself to think of Marianne as someone who had… feelings. Or any kind of background other than the one she’d drawn for her.

She recoiled, internally, from that as well, like she’d just pressed on a bruise she didn’t know she had. There was something indefinably _wrong_ about considering Marianne as anything other than a villain. Her leg bounced with the energy of the panic she felt washing up against the edge of her awareness.

A light hand on her shoulder startled her out of her train of thought, and she turned slightly to meet Camille’s warm, dark eyes. She took a deep breath, and nodded her thanks.

“How do you know all this, Caro?”

Caro gave a wide grin in Camille’s direction before answering. “I used to be _super_ into this stuff, Emma can tell you. It was, like, my _thing_ in high school,”

Emma laughed half-heartedly, her eyebrows raising at the memory.

“It’s true,” she said. “You were always telling us about, like, magic plants and seances. I was convinced you just spent all your free time reading about it,”

“I mean, I basically did for a while.” She gave Emma a light shove on the arm. “The more things change, eh?”

Emma smiled softly. “You said that before,” she said, giving a gentle laugh. “Even Marianne still has a cat.”

She paused for a moment.

“Except, things _do_ change,” she said. She gestured vaguely at Camille. “This one’s new,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On reflection, I feel I have to clarify: when I said Emma gets potentially two girlfriends I _was_ referring to Camille and Marianne. Alas, however, it seems I'm incapable of writing women being peers in a non-gay way (ladies, is it gay to stay up past midnight talking about the gender politics of witch hunts and also, spoilers for next ch, fall asleep on and around each other?), so. if Caro also reads to you as Emma's Second Girlfriend then more power to you. There is no upper limit on the number of girlfriends Emma can have. This is my gift to her.


	13. An Impasse

In the end, Emma and Camille stayed with Caro for the rest of the night, for a while under the guise of dithering over whether to stay, though they ultimately came to an unspoken agreement to settle down, the three of them somehow seeming to sink into the single couch as they leaned heavily on each other and talked haltingly, quietly.

It was easy, Emma thought to herself, easy like at the wreck all those days ago before things started to go wrong. Except this time, despite herself, she found herself reluctant to question it, to wonder what the catch was or when it was going to end. And this time, it wasn’t the nostalgia, or even the ease of falling into old habits; it was the ease of something totally new, but which fitted her in a way she’d never expected.

The gentle glow of the lamps dotted around the room stayed on all night, none of them having the heart to get up, or really the desire to turn them off. Instead, they just drifted in and out of conversation and consciousness, bathed in the unfaltering safety of a room that was now lived-in.

When they woke, Emma found herself more rested than she’d been since before the incident at Séby’s, despite the uncomfortable angle her neck had come to rest in for most of the night. She rubbed at it, her hand feeling soft and warm and jellylike as she moved from where it had previously been using Camille’s arm as a makeshift blanket.

Fortunately, the three of them woke early enough that Caro’s mother wasn’t up yet, and the light oozing in from the window to their right was a pale yellow that sparkled on the dust motes that stirred with them.

So, after a hasty reminder to Caro as to why they’d come to visit, and why they’d fallen asleep on her couch (and, for that matter, on her), Camille decamped to the kitchen to make a start on breakfast, while Emma stayed to help Caro record a coda to the previous evening’s diary entry.

“What an honour,” Caro remarked with a smirk, the phone still recording, “to have the aid of a _professional_ in making my notes,”

Emma snorted, shoving at her lightly. “Professional _on hiatus_ , thank you. I still need to figure out what to write now that I’m done with Marianne,”

“Well,” Caro continued with mock-seriousness, “you _could_ always write a diary.” She tapped at the edge of her phone with her finger.

“Uh-huh,” Emma said dubiously, though she distantly felt an answering grin slide onto her face. “Let’s go help Camille. Or do you have any more expert career advice for me?”

Without answering, Caro gave Emma’s shoulder a shove, finally ending the recording, and standing to make her way to the kitchen.

\--

Emma and Camille had left soon after, though not without the opportunity to also give a quick ‘hello’ to Caro’s mother, along with the hasty excuse that they’d been over for, “Um, research,” as Emma put it.

Now, though, the two of them sat in Camille’s car, parked outside Emma’s parents’ house, staring up at it as if it had teeth. Which, until last night, Emma might have said it basically did. Now, she wasn’t so sure; but she also wasn’t ‘not so sure’ _enough_ that she was about to just walk back in like there was no problem.

“So…” she began. “What are we gonna, y’know… _do_? About her?”

Camille turned to look at her from where she’d been leaning her head against her folded arms, propped up on the steering wheel.

After a thoughtful pause, she straightened up. “Well, what are our options?”

Emma let out a deep exhale, running her hand through her fringe.

“Well. I guess we could… ask her to leave? I mean, last time I tried to _make_ her leave it didn’t go great. Given that, y’know, _this_ is what we got out of it,”

Camille nodded. “That’s true. How do you think she’d respond, if we asked?”

“How should I know?” Emma threw her hands up in helpless exasperation. “What did we do last night other than thoroughly establish that I don’t actually know anything about her?”

“You know how she’s acted towards you in the past,” Camille pointed out. “Sure, there’s a bigger picture we don’t know, but you know her better than anyone else,”

Emma raised a wry eyebrow. “No wonder she’s so pissy all the time…”

She gave a grin at the light shove that earned her, leaning over to nudge Camille’s shoulder with her own in return.

“I guess the other option is trying to pretend we didn’t notice,” she said half-heartedly. “But I don’t think she’d buy it. The question is, would she play along, or call us out on it?”

Camille settled back into the corner. “What do you think?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never— _known_ it was her in the same way, y’know?” she paused. “I think she’d probably play along. Let us stew in it.” She made a vague wiggly gesture with her hands to emphasise the point.

Camille raised her eyebrows in some mix of amusement at Emma’s antics, and disgust at the idea.

“Well, if it were me, then, I’d probably ask her to leave. It gives us more control over the situation, puts us on an even playing field,”

“Does it? I mean, she’ll just say no. Or, if she says yes, she’ll make it suck like she did last time,”

“So what do _you_ want to do?”

Emma was quiet, leaning forward in a mirror to Camille’s earlier position, resting her head on her arms.

“Well, talking seems to be going so _well_ for me so far…” she said grudgingly. “And I think it’s the thing she’d least expect. Especially since she… knows me like I know her. Let’s try it, I guess,”

\--

The inside of the house was just as blindingly bright as Emma remembered, though she found that, now she was expecting it, it startled her less. It still made the house look just alien enough that she had to second-guess finding her way around, but even that now seemed… neutral. Like it wasn’t trying to be confusing, it just was what it now was.

Casting a glance back at Camille, she wondered how Camille saw it; the house was already new to her, had only a few of the same memories attached to it. Would that make it harder to navigate, or easier, under this new light?

They found Marianne exactly where they’d left her, and if she hadn’t obviously been wearing different clothes, Emma would have had the disquieting impression that she genuinely hadn’t moved. As it was, it seemed that she’d just found which armchair she liked best, with an indirect view of the window, and a bookshelf in easy reach.

And, of course, she insisted on sitting perfectly properly, because apparently manners were important when you were possessing someone’s mother.

She turned to them with that same bright, fixed smile as they walked in, and a polite, if perfunctory, “Hello,”

Emma and Camille exchanged a look, and then a deep breath.

“We know who you are,” Emma started.

“I know,” Marianne cut in. “You weren’t very subtle last time, Emma. You’ve gotten better at recognising me,” she added, as if she was proud of Emma.

Emma levelled her with a look that she hoped was vaguely contemptuous, and crossed her arms.

“We’d like you to leave,” she pressed on.

Marianne’s eyebrows raised, just a fraction. “I’m sure you would,” she said. “I _had_ hoped that my continued presence here for the last few days would be sufficient to convey that I have no plans of doing so,”

Emma turned to Camille, and gave her a pointed ‘I-told-you-so’ look.

Camille resolutely ignored it, and crossed her arms as she addressed Marianne directly.

“So what _do_ you plan to do?”

“Stay,” Marianne said, with a smile that bordered on smug. Just slightly.

At Emma’s obvious eye-roll, she continued, “I was thinking about trying a new tactic with you, Emma. As I said, you’ve gotten too good at recognising me to continue to rely on stealth. So I won’t,”

Emma gave a toneless groan.

“So what, you’re just gonna stick around and _annoy_ me into submission?”

Another smile. “We’ll see,”

\--

In the weeks that followed, it struck Emma as suspicious how quickly she and Camille had gotten used to having Marianne around. It had taken, as far as she remembered, the better part of 48 hours before the three of them had fallen into a routine around each other, albeit a tense one.

It had been on the morning of that third day that Emma pulled Camille aside on the pretence of a walk, whispering to her in urgent tones.

“What is she _up_ to?” she’d said, leaning in as if they’d be overheard.

Camille had raised an exasperated eyebrow.

“As far as I can tell, nothing,”

“Nothing?”

“I keep saying, Emma, you know her better than I do. But, honestly, as far as I can tell, the most annoying thing about her right now is that she _isn’t_ trying to manipulate anything,”

“No, but, maybe—” Emma had leaned further in, “— _maybe_ that’s the point! She’s trying to psych us out!”

Camille had looped her arm through Emma’s, apparently determined to turn the pretence of a pleasant afternoon walk into a real pleasant afternoon walk.

“Well, then, we’ll have to wait,”

So Emma had grumbled, and allowed herself to be led on what was, in fairness to Camille, a very pleasant walk. After all, what else was there to do? Confronting Marianne again would be just as circular and pointless as last time, she was sure… so she’d conceded the point. For now.

It had been a few days later that she suddenly became aware that she’d forgotten to worry about what Marianne was (surely) ‘up to’. She’d caught herself right on the edge of some genuine relaxation, something almost like contentment with the situation, and yanked herself back hard into panic mode.

That had been a rough afternoon, for both her and Camille, and the two of them had spent most of the day holed up in Emma’s room talking on and off. Camille had hoped that riding out the wave of fear would be enough to tire Emma out, but in the end she’d gone to bed anxious, and kept waking up in the night, the intermittent glow of the lighthouse now apparently seeming to her like a slow, repetitive stab in the eyes.

So the next day, Camille had taken her out for some fresh air and another visit to Caro. If the distraction didn’t work, she’d reasoned, the exercise would still burn off some of the nervous energy. But in the end, what really seemed to help was the change in view; the open, grey light of the late autumn, and the cold to go with it, had grounded her. After another couple of days of walking on that knife-edge, she’d shifted back into a wary, but stable, calm.

The next time Emma found herself _noticing_ that she’d relaxed (or, she still insisted, that she’d been coaxed into letting her guard down), it was met with a kind of detached curiosity. There was a surprise at the realisation, and there was distrust, but the out-and-out fear of last time had left her entirely.

She prodded at the feeling, and when it gave, it revealed a new string of memories, now numerous enough to form a thread of their own, of living with Marianne. Of passing her in the corridors (but never settling in the same room), or bickering over where things should be kept, or passive-aggressively continuing to leave open a door that Marianne insisted should be closed at all times.

It felt, now that there was enough of it to really examine, not unlike the Marianne she used to know. After all, she would have expected a manipulative lack of action to involve more ‘sucking up’. And, she thought, to be less _annoying_. This was just… living with a roommate. A roommate who refused to listen and wouldn’t concede anything she didn’t have to, but a roommate nonetheless.

It had taken a few days of inwards-directed exasperation at her apparent comfort living with an undead witch before she’d let herself talk to Camille about it.

“What is she _up_ to?” she’d said, again, the repetition not lost on her.

Camille had just raised her eyebrows at the outburst, and let her talk it out.

“She’s not _doing_ anything,” Emma continued from where she was sat on the bed. “I mean, it’s been weeks and she hasn’t even _tried_ anything! Like, I thought she was supposed to be the great puppet-master—” she made an exaggerated gesture “—but she’s just _rude_ ,”

Camille had offered a commiserating nod at that, but otherwise kept silent.

“She’s not even rude in a cool, spooky way, either,” she said, gaining momentum (and volume). “She’s just _annoying_ rude. I keep half-expecting her to tell me to clean my room or something,”

And really, she thought, that would be a step too far. She could just about handle the rest of the house being fucked with, but she drew the line at being treated like a teenager that was acting out.

She halted in her rant at Camille light laughter.

“What?” Her arms were still half-raised in an aborted gesture of frustration.

“Is that really the worst thing you could imagine?” Camille said, still grinning. “Being told to clean your room?”

Emma crossed her arms, grumbling again. And, though she was loath to admit it, once again conceding the point.

\--

It was nearly four weeks in that the three of them realised that the cat – who seemed to have taken very well to being called ‘Wily Little Bastard’ – was nowhere to be found.

Marianne was the first to notice. Of course she was, though Emma still found herself surprised by it.

“I thought you said ‘she likes to wander’? How d’you know this is any different?” she’d said.

Marianne had fixed her with a hard stare. “This feels different,” was all she offered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fear not, the cat is literally fine. I'm just being dramatic making it cliffhanger.


End file.
